Grim Duel at Newport

Out of Newport Harbor streamed the spectator fleet--a hundred boats of every size and description, from 15-ft. "harbor rats" with patched sails to majestic 50-ft.

motor sailers adorned with bunnies in bikinis and old salts in yachting caps. Picnic baskets were broken out, and beer cans began bobbing gently in the glassy sea.

But there was no merriment aboard the four sleek U.S. 12-meter yachts standing tall and aloof across the water. The final elimination trials were at hand, and crewmen waited tensely for the starting gun that would send them off, two by two, under the stern eye of the selection committee, in pursuit of U.S. yachting's biggest prize: the right to battle Australia's Gretel next month in defense of the III in-year-old America's Cup.

Just seven miles away, off rocky Point Judith last week, the Aussie challenger was in action too--racing against her 23-year-old trial horse, Vim. No spectator fleet dogged Gretel's wake, but day after day the crews bent to their tasks under the calculating gaze of their own, one-man selection committee, the man they call "Big Daddy": Sir Frank Packer, 55, newspaper publisher, millionaire sportsman, and boss of the Down Under syndicate that has poured $700,000 into the white-hulled Aussie challenger. Last week Packer did not even take time off to see how his opposition was doing. "I can't be bothered about the Yanks," he snorted.

"We're running our own trials here--trying to get ready." Changes All Around. While Gretel has been in the U.S. only five weeks, the Yanks have been racing all summer, first in a series of "observation" trials, then on the New York Yacht Club's annual cruise. Sail lockers have been overhauled, crews weeded out, tactics plotted and replotted. Now, Henry Mercer's four-year-old Weatherly came out for the finals with her pale blue hull newly painted and polished. Ross Anderson's Nefertiti, damaged by vandals fortnight ago, was repaired and ready to go. And for the first time all summer, the mainsail on Chandler Hovey's Easterner seemed just right.

The biggest change was on Columbia, the defending America's Cup champion.

An easy victor in four straight races against Britain's Sceptre in 1958, Columbia was the overwhelming early favorite to defend the cup again this year. But critics argued that Investment Banker Paul Shields, who bought Columbia (for about $150,000) from a New York syndicate in 1961, had "ruined a good boat" by tampering with her (Columbia's keel had been shortened), that Skipper Cornelius ("Glit") Shields Jr., 28, the owner's nephew, was too young and inexperienced to handle a big America's Cup yacht.

Father & Son Team. For the final trials, Columbia has a new mast (cost: $12,000) that has been stepped nine inches abaft the old one--a shift that, says Designer Olin Stephens, should make Columbia more manageable in heavy seas, faster beating to windward. She also has a new crew member: canny Cornelius ("Corny") Shields Sr., Glit Shields's father, the 67-year-old "grey fox of Long Island Sound," winner of more races than any yachtsman in history. In 1956 Corny suffered a heart attack, was advised to quit racing. Last week, deciding that he would be better on the boat than undergoing agonies of frustration off her, the old sailor shared Columbia's cockpit with his son. Columbia lifted to the master's touch, first beating Nefertiti by a wide 5 min. 17 sec., then trimming Easterner by 2 min. 36 sec. over the 24-mile windward-leeward course.

Grinned Corny Sr.: "We've got the best boat--no question about it." But next day Columbia took on unbeaten Weatherly, which had also scored handily over Nefertiti and Easterner. Plagued by a bad jib, Columbia suffered her first loss (by i min. 13 sec.), left Weatherly the only unbeaten boat of the trials.

Cruising & Crackling. At the end of the first week of the final trials, only Chandler Hovey's Easterner seemed out of it. Owner Hovey, a crusty Boston banker who races purely for fun, had refused to lay out the huge sums spent by other competitors; .his son, grandson and son-in-law were in Easterner's crew, and his skipper, George O'Day, 1960 Olympic Gold Medal winner, had quit in disgust, to be replaced by Designer Ray Hunt.

Said one Newporter, in a cold sailor's judgment: "They're just out for a cruise." Far different was the crackling atmosphere on Weatherly, a veteran of the 1958 trials (she finished third). Owner Henry Mercer had turned out his pockets to have two feet chopped from her stern, a heavier (by 2,000 Ibs.) keel cast, new sails and rigging fitted. And then there was the presence of Emil ("Bus") Mosbacher, 40, who is the kind of skipper to make any boat a contender. A genius at starts and short tacks, red-haired Bus Mosbacher runs Weatherly with impressive efficiency.

Her crew moves in practiced cadence; spinnaker jibes are accomplished in five seconds or less, tacks in as little as six seconds. Says Mosbacher: "We're the best all-round. Going to windward in winds up to 15 knots, nobody can touch us. Columbia is only better reaching on a very hard breeze. At no other time has she gone faster." Nor could anyone count out broad-beamed Nefertiti. Despite her two straight losses in the final trials, she was still the most exciting of the twelves. Launched only three months ago, Nefertiti is a radical departure in 12-meter design. Her hull is 17 inches wider than any of the other U.S. twelves', and she looks more like a cutter than a sloop. But she ran up a 10-2 record in last month's windy preliminary trials, and both her losses last week could be chalked up to light breezes of 10 knots or less. How she goes from now on depends on taciturn Ted Hood, 35, the Marblehead sailmaker who designed her and took over as full-time skipper after Nefertiti's syndicate fired brash, hot-tempered Don McNamara, the Boston stockbroker who sailed her so well in the observation trials.

Cherished Monstrosity. Whichever boat the committee chooses will be a heavy favorite to retain the America's Cup against Gretel next month. Tradition is firmly with the U.S. In in years, the U.S. has never lost a match for the quaint Victorian monstrosity that cost 100 guineas (about $500) new and remains securely bolted to the bottom of a glass trophy case in the New York Yacht Club.

The first race in 1851 set the pattern.

To help celebrate the Crystal Palace Exhibition (the first world's fair), members of England's Royal Yacht Squadron hit on a grand scheme: invite a U.S. boat to race--and give the brash Yankee upstarts a lesson in sailing tactics. The gauntlet was swiftly picked up by Commodore John C. Stevens, a founder of the New York Yacht Club, an ardent gambler and a shrewd sailor. The terms were tough: the course was laid out around the Isle of Wight, and Stevens' 102-ft. pilot schooner America was to race alone against the entire Royal Yacht Squadron. At the finish line, aboard her royal yacht, Queen Victoria herself waited to present the "100 Guineas Cup" to the winner. Finally, a hail from the bridge: "Sail ho!" "Which boat is it?" demanded the Queen. "The America, Madam." Said Victoria: "Oh, indeed! And which is second?" There was a pause, while the signalman's glass swept the horizon. "I regret to report," came the halting reply, "that there is no second." "Yankee trickery," charged the British yachtsmen, hinting darkly that black-hulled America was powered by some sort of "infernal machine." In the bitterness of that moment, one of sport's great and enduring contests was born: the America's Cup became a symbol of national pride, national purpose--and, as it turned out, national frustration. The British tried 15 times to win the cup, the Canadians twice. Their combined efforts cost perhaps $25 million, and all met with defeat at the hands of superior Yankee design, tactics, or luck. The contests were rarely close: out of 54 races for the cup, U.S. boats lost only five.

"The auld mug," Sir Thomas Lipton lovingly called it, and the merry Glasgow tea baron tried five times to win it with his majestic Shamrocks, only to fail and die, finally disheartened ("I willna challenge again. I canna win"), in 1931.

Equally persistent was Britain's T.O.M.

Sopwith, famed stunt flyer, hydroplane racer and aircraft builder (his World War II Hurricanes held off the German Luftwaffe), whose Endeavors twice challenged for the cup, lost in 1934 only by the narrowest of margins--four races to two--to Harold S. Vanderbilt's Rainbow.

Compulsive Gamble. Like Lipton and Sopwith, Australia's Sir Frank Packer is a tough, determined competitor. Asked why he had challenged for the cup, Packer replied: "Alcohol and delusions of grandeur." Lusty and lantern-jawed, a onetime prizefighter and lifelong yachtsman, Packer is known at home as a ruthless, tight-fisted publisher who once laced out a reporter for spending 6/ of his boss's money on a tram ride to an assignment--Packer told him to walk. Employees on his five newspapers (among them: the Sydney Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph), three magazines and two TV stations sometimes refer to him as "Gorgo" --after the mad monster of the movies.

Says a rival publisher: "Sir Frank will stop at nothing to save a quid or earn one." Yet he has been known to bet $7,-ooo on the flip of a coin, and some of that same compulsive gambler's plunge led him to challenge for the America's Cup.

The odds are enormous. Gretel is the first 12-meter yacht ever built in Australia, and her crew is untried in the boat-to-boat duels of match racing. But, says Packer, "we came to Newport for only one reason--to win," and he has spared no effort or expense. Designer Alan Payne spent twelve months and $18,000 of Packer's money testing hull models in the tank at New Jersey's Stevens Institute. The product of those tests is a 6g-ft. 5-in. hull of Honduras mahogany that took nine months to build. Gretel's sails were cut from 13,970 yds. of light blue Dacron imported from the U.S.; her go-it, extruded aluminum mast was constructed to such rigid specifications that four one-thousandths of an inch was shaved off one section to make sure that its center of gravity was correct. "This is a national project," said Sir Frank, and Aussies everywhere were caught up in the excitement. One company donated bronze, another turned it into screws at no cost, a third gave 20 tons of lead for her keel and ballast. Local manufacturers donated the crew's sweaters, shorts, and T-shirts.

Raging Nor'easter. At home in Sydney Harbor, Gretel already had shown herself swift and maneuverable in medium winds.

Fortnight ago, Packer gave her a sterner test. When a raging nor'easter swept into Newport from the slate-grey North Atlantic, he ordered Gretel to sea for a race against Vim. As small-craft warnings fluttered along the Rhode Island coast, the two boats ran boldly before the 25-knot wind, working up speeds as high as 12 knots, lee rails awash and scant yards of churning ocean separating their glistening hulls. Aboard Vim, Helmsman Archie Robertson braced himself against the cockpit wall and strained to hold the wheel steady. Aboard Gretel, Skipper Jock Sturrock wiped salt spume from his eyes and cursed his broken compass.

Winches rattled, halyards sang, and pelting rain beat a steady tattoo against the sails. For more than six miles, the two boats matched swell for swell, trough for trough, until it seemed that they were bound together by an invisible chain.

Finally, inexorably, Gretel began to walk away, first by 20 yds., then 50, then 100.

Desperately, Robertson eased sail; relentlessly, Gretel increased her margin--sliding through the heavy seas with ghostly grace. She stood high, she footed fast, she simply could not be caught--even by accident. Just one-quarter mile from the finish line, Gretel's light blue Genoa jib tore loose from its main clew and flopped overboard. But the damage was quickly repaired and Gretel swept triumphantly past Brenton Reef lightship, with Vim trailing in her wake.

Back in Newport Harbor, Skipper Sturrock headed for Fair Oaks, a sprawling, 27-room mansion that Sir Frank Packer has leased for the summer. Pipe clenched firmly in his teeth, Packer listened silently to Sturrock's account of Gretel's race with Vim. "She may do," Sir Frank nodded. "She may do, after all."

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