Do the Rules Now Rule the Waves?

By Russ Hoyle

The America's Cup wallows in a slough of bickering

The veneer of decorum that shrouds the baser competitive instincts at Newport, R.I., during an America's Cup summer suddenly seemed in danger of self-destructing. As rain clouds and brisk northeast winds rolled in for the challengers' semifinals last week, the four remaining foreign boats--Australia II, Britain's Victory '83, Italy's Azzurra and Canada 1--did their best to concentrate on the business at hand. But a series of byzantine maneuvers by American yachtsmen threatened to turn the dueling on the high seas into an off-the-water battle over rulebook technicalities.

The first controversy involved the radical keel of the leading foreign challenger, Australia II. The brainchild of ebullient Australian Designer Ben Lexcen, the keel has provided Newport with gossip, speculation and creative chicanery all summer. Swathed in blue-green skirts whenever Australia II is out of the water, the supersecret keel has been the target of camera-wielding scuba divers from rival camps. One local cartoon lampooned the mysterious keel by depicting it in the shape of a bottle of Swan Lager, a major corporate backer of the Australia II effort.

By midsummer, however, the basic features of the keel were common knowledge around Newport: the unusual appendage rakes forward under the hull into a bulb, then sweeps aft into two delta-shaped wings designed to give the boat an advantage while heeled over sailing upwind (see diagram). The exact dimensions of the keel were well known to the International Yacht Racing Union's Measurement Committee, which had formally examined Australia II for conformity to the complicated 12-meter standards well before the racing began.

With Australia II on its way to an impressive 37-4 won-lost record, Halsey Herreshoff, navigator of the leading American boat, Liberty, drafted a complaint, claiming that the keel was illegal and that the Australians should be penalized, disqualified or forced to change its configuration. Otherwise, wrote Herreshoff in his memo to New York Yacht Club officials, Australia II "will likely win the America's Cup." No foreign boat has ever done that in the 132-year history of the races, and some of the challengers quickly charged that the N.Y.Y.C. was doing its best to make sure that this year was no exception.

Supported by Herreshoff's argument that the Aussie keel fins give the boat added draft, or depth, upwind, thus making it a 12.5-meter or 12.8-meter yacht in those conditions, the N.Y.Y.C. asked the Measurement (TM) Committee to reconsider its earlier O.K. Last week the I.Y.R.U. officials responded with a unanimous no. But that did not end the matter.

Robert McCullough, chairman of the N.Y.Y.C. America's Cup Committee, next asked the I.Y.R.U.'S Keel Boat Committee, the final arbiter on such technical questions, to examine the keel. "In our country," observed Australia II Executive Director Warren Jones, "we take the referee's ruling and go on with the game. Why don't the Americans do the same?"

While the keel affair simmered, a second dispute, potentially more embarrassing to the N.Y.Y.C. mandarins, rocked Newport. Race officials, it seemed, had allowed U.S.

Skipper Dennis Conner to use multiple rating certificates, which gave Liberty an advantage during the June and July trials--without the knowledge of the other American contenders. When expecting light winds, for example, Conner's crew could have removed ballast from the bilge and installed a longer boom, giving the boat less displacement and more sail area without changing Liberty's overall rating. All other boats have sailed under one certification. And so did Liberty, insisted Conner: "If you read the rule, you'd see that it is illegal to have more than one."

Unfortunately for Conner, the N.Y.Y.C.'s keel complaint to the I.Y.R.U. also asked for clarification on the legality of using multiple certificates. "Liberty has done this in our selection trials," McCullough acknowledged. Remarked John Kolius, skipper of the third-place American boat Courageous: "Nobody passed out, but it was surprising."

By week's end, the appearance of impropriety had grown so severe that some officials of the N.Y.Y.C. were privately expressing concern about favoritism shown Conner and the Liberty syndicate. Meanwhile, Australia H's sudden, and probably exaggerated, reputation as a superboat suffered a setback of sorts. Another American boat, Defender, sailed by Tom Blackaller, met Australia II ten miles offshore for an impromptu drag race, a gambit that violated at least the spirit of N.Y.Y.C. rules banning test races between any American boat and a foreign challenger. The result was a dead heat. But few believed the face-off settled much of anything. In Newport last week, everyone was bridling at the rules. As Defender Designer David Pedrick said after his boat's escapade: "It's a bloody shame when lawyers become important members of the crew." --By Russ Hoyle. Reported by Richard Hornik and John F. Stacks/Newport

With reporting by Richard Hornik, John F. Stacks This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.