There is ample talk around still that Canada’s chances were dimmed because of the New York YC wouldn’t recognize the Secret Cove yacht club as a valid challenger till much latter on.
Yeah, and Buddy Melges (at the time) had a heck of a go trying to convince same that Wisconsin (Heart of America challenge) was an “arm-of-the-sea” in order to be recognized as a legitimate challenger. Best feelings ever expressed: Ted Turner’s engineer’s hat with NYYC logo on it - very irreverant, indeed!
The entire Amerca’s Cup - (in my opinion and that means little) needs to focus on sailing and get the politics out of there - sure, like THAT would ever happen.
G’day Dick.
Ted Turners Engineer’s hat did not have a logo on it. I know because I have it in my possesion.
A mate of mine was standing on the dock when Ted Turner was thrown in the water after winning the Auld Mug and his hat floated past and my mate got it.
If you look at all the photos of that event you will see that Ted has lost his hat and it now reside in OZ.
Steve
Well Coug , You sent me back to the race records of the America’s cup Challenger Elimination Races 1983’ and in Round Robin races A,B, C, Canada 1 won 19 races and challenge 12 won 24 races.
Because Challenge 12 won only 7 races in the C series it was eliminated but note, Canada 1 only won 2 more races than Challenge 12 in the last series, even though challenge 12 blitzed them in A and B series. Definitely not clear cut to me?
well steve
you got me there. challenge 12 was indeed coming on strong, but with that said. canada was not the push over people thought. we did not have 2 boats to play with most time. i remember that the company that did our paint job. held the boat. because we could not pay the bill. we were the poor boys. but that did not stop us from trying. and i think we did a great job. btw our training boat was clipper.
as dick said about the acc they did have a response to the canada challenge. the secret cove yacht club did exist. i was there. but a yacth club. not by anything resambling a normal club. they rent out old sailboats and have a hot dog stand.
now I cannot confirm this. but i heard that they agreed to sell out the name. just to have a club on the ocean
but they agian. with us canadians. YOU NEVER KNOW
LOL
cougar
oh yeah
by the way. if the politics were ever removed. the new york yacth club would NEVER have held on to its cup as long as it did. they cheated. stole, and even threated to not race. when face with losing. said to say this. but the of water acivities are as important as what goes on in the water
remember america had a short cut to win the race in the first place
cougar
Sure, as if A Canadian team ever had a chance at really wining the cup.:what:
:p:devil2:I second that:p:devil3:
Well Mates. Its all water under the bridge, now. The story as it unfoldered was inhansed with the input of these little things, like the Secret Cove Yacht Club and the Arm- of- the Sea in Wisconin. And when it is all over I hope we (collectively) have a little chuckle about it for it was truly great yachting history. And we can always think of “if onlys” if we want, but history in itself was interesting.
It was clear that the NYYC was working in a different era to the rest of the World at that time. They had already modified the Cup rules several times to try to keep the ‘Foriegn competition’ interested, otherwise we would still be sailing over there to compete and other type of things. One of the things that I think caused the NYYC lots of problems was the huge organization problems of a multi countries challengers. For it took heaps to put on a worthwhile series every three odd years. The local people in Newport made a lot out of it, so there was pressure on the Club to fill those needs as well.
There were three things that Canada1 needed and that was Money, Money , Money. The other boat, Challenge 12 suffered from the same problem. The Countries that didn’t have that problem did well, as the result show.
I particularly liked the Italian bid , this had some good things about it.
Let’s try the NYYC “Pin” - I mis-spoke on that one. I recall a huge hubbub up here in the sailing mags, where the 'club" felt it wasn’t dignified to have their lapel pin (I believe) on his hat. He may have removed the pin when sailing? Definitely wasn’t a sew on or embroidered logo. Apologies.
Little did they know how many engineer hats that episode spawned with us “regular” sailors. My favorite possession until wife decided “other things” were living in it was an engineers hat with the local catamaran club logo on it.
Speaking of hats - I have a sun visor around somewhere that has the boxing 'roo on it. Will have to dig that out.
I can tell you Dick , I have worn that Engineer’s cap at many R/C regattas since then and I haven’t won any of them.
Has anyone read the Book Challenge '77 by Ted Jones(he’s an American) Well on the back dust cover of the book it has got a beaut picture of Ted Turner wearing (mine now) his engineer’s hat
only one “hat” to have!:devil1::devil1:
well steve you are right. canada 1 did suffer from money . but i was surpised they did as well as they did. challenge 12 suffer not from money. but from lack of talent. everygood sailor was on aussie 2. bertrand was the best skipper. so he went to aussie 2. savage was on the other boat. the best sails went to aussie 2. do i think challenge 12 could have beaten liberty, nope. it was either aussie 2 or nothing.if canada 1 had the money. to buy a good mast. buy good sails. they might have been competetive. but terry was the best starting helmsman. but that was it.
dc did it right in 87. he got rid of the nyyc. got a designer that new about boats. and told him what he wanted. the desinger gave him what he wanted. and he won it. peroid.
in 87 the only thing that could have stop dc was kz7. and dc had experience over a young cris dickson
cougar
A bit hard to answer that last post Coug. john Bertrand was there as skipper from the beginning of the 83 effort and exclusively on A11. The challenge 12 syndicate boat while designed by Lexcon was in Victoria , about 3600 miles from Australia 11 in Western Australia. Bondy only agreed to take it over ( Challenge 12 ) later because they ran out of money. As I said in a earlier post.
I suppose it would be like somebody in Vancouver being aligned with someone in Ottawa as the same team.
Coug, I just want to put this out here, while we are talking about this interesting discussion about twelve metres.
One of Lexcon 's favourite sayings when he was talking about the cup was in 1980 was “the challenghers were just dopey,they weren’t man enough to beat the Americans, for The Americans believe in their own ability and the Challengers (didn’t) have that belief they could do it”. I suppose we can talk about boats till the cows come home but this great designer knew that the boat was just part of the equation.
steve
i agree. i have talked with bruce kirby. the designer of canada 1. this boat was fast and was designed for the fall conditions. as has been pionted out . us dumb canadains never knew we did not stand a chance. we thought we had a chance. i never knew challenge 12 was a different challenge. i thought bondy had bankrolled both. and was just using challenege 12 as sort of like a trial boat. too bad we dont have drawings for them. would not mind making rc models of them. i have the victor models australia II. and my wife love driving it. would not mind canada 1 or even challenge 12
but i still think aussie II was the boat to beat. and austalia 1 with the bendy mast could have made a good run,
but then agian another story. did the yankee steal that design also
cougar
Well Coug , there is drawings around. Let me direct you to a book by Bruce Stannard, ISBN 0-571-13396-7 “BEN LEXCON the man, the keel and the cup”. this small book has the drawings of Aussie 11 and Aussie 1 in it.
Lexcon said that challenge 12 was a derivitive of Aussie 1. But I’m not too sure. If you look at the under water lines of Challenge 12 the aft sections from the back of the keel to the transom are almost identical with Aussie 11. Including tha big flat section aft of the rudder. The bow , again is like Aussie 11 and not like Aussie1 at all. The only difference I can see is the keel and the actual keel looks like (on Challenge 12) Aussie1. Do you make sense of that. I have another photo which shows Aussie 11 and Challenge on the slips together and they look the same from the top of the keel up.
If you can’t get this book, tell me and I will see if I can get one for you.
In actual fact Coug, Australia 'pinched ’ the idea of the bendy rig off the English and they(Aust) built their bendy rig on the dock at Newport.
Coug I’m about to fit out a Aussie11 model about 59" long, wing keel and all.
I expect that there will be people like you who will be interested in these types of boats. Now I would expect that the Aussie 11 hull could have a Challenge 12 keel on it for the people who have weeded ponds. Imagine having a model of Aussie 11 with the winged keel in some weed? I for one wouldn’t mind finding out how good Challenge 12 really was? And as Lexcon said in 83’ it was only the sails and manning that were the difference in the two boats.