Our Cup Runneth Under

By Michael Demarest

The old trophy sailed off to Perth when Australia II beat Liberty

The land Down Under had not witnessed such an orgy of jubilation since V-J day ended the war in the Pacific. When Australia II won the America's Cup on Rhode Island Sound last week, it was as if the cork had been pulled on an entire continent of bubbly. Indeed, as the revelry roiled on, the only worry in many Australian minds was that the champers would run out. A 130-ft. by 65-ft. Australian flag was hung from Sydney Harbor bridge. In every village, town and city from Wollongong to Jiggalong, car, bus, train and ferry horns blared and ululated from daybreak on. Crude posters with messages like YOU BEAUTIES and WE KEELED THEM sprouted outside homes, shops and public buildings. At Brisbane's Crest International Hotel, the Early American Inn became the Australia II Inn, its Statue of Liberty decked with the Australian flag, a stuffed koala bear placed in an arm. The stock exchanges saw a surge in shares connected with any enterprise of Perth Entrepreneur Alan Bond, Australia II's backer.

"There are not many occasions when a Prime Minister can speak for everyone in Australia," intoned Prime Minister Bob Hawke, "but I know I can." Hawke, a nondrinker, was soaked in champagne as he appeared on national television leading spirited rounds of Waltzing Matilda and calling this "one of the greatest moments in sporting history." A Perth boy himself, Hawke appeared for the victory rites at the Royal Perth Yacht Club, sponsor of the winning boat. All but declaring a national holiday, the P.M. said that any employer who sacked a worker for being absent that day would be a "bum."

The cause of all this fizz and fever, the seventh and final race that broke the New York Yacht Club's 132-year-old hold on the Cup and ended the longest winning streak in sports, had been billed in advance as the Race of the Century. It was that, every hard-fought inch of the way.

Postponed on Saturday because of shifty winds, the race again seemed in jeopardy on Monday. Then, almost an hour late, with a southwesterly breeze notching a tender eight knots, the duel was on. Liberty, the defending twelve-meter yacht, took yet another start from the Aussies. Midway up the first leg, however, the Americans' 8-sec. lead turned into a deficit of three or four lengths as Australia II streaked upwind on a starboard tack and Liberty went to port. After the first crossover, Aussie Skipper John Bertrand committed the cardinal sin of leaving his opponent uncovered. Liberty Helmsman Dennis Conner took the left side of the course for his own and by the first mark had opened a 29-sec. lead. It looked to many as if he had the race in his sail bag.

The Americans widened their lead to 45 sec. on the first leeward reach and managed to make it 57 sec. by the fourth mark. But on the fifth leg, a 4.5-mile run with the wind dead astern, the lead and the Cup changed hands. Playing the wind shifts, Conner moved to the left and sailed into a patch of dead air. With sails almost slack, Liberty jibed back, but the Aussie superboat picked up two shifts of friendly wind and rounded the fifth mark with a 21-sec. lead. Conner battled desperately to recover on the last, upwind leg, going through 47 grueling tacks. Said the American skipper: "We kept the pressure on them, but there was no point on that last weather leg that we thought their victory was in jeopardy."

When Australia II finally crossed the invisible line between the marker buoy and the committee boat, she was 41 sec. ahead. The spectator fleet exploded with excitement. Rubber dinghies, day sailers, party boats and ocean racers swarmed around the Down Under wonder in a cacophony of blaring horns and Klaxons. Ashore, bands of Australians waltzing Matilda and waving Aussie flags passed legions of local patriots God-blessing America and brandishing the Stars and Stripes. Despite a few ugly incidents, there was remarkably little ill will among the crowd of 10,000 on the Newport waterfront. As Australia II was guided back into her slip, Skipper Bertrand, Backer Bond and Designer Ben Lexcen led a round of hip-hip-hoorays for Conner and his men. "There will never be another like it," mused Halsey Herreshoff, Liberty's navigator. "It was the essence of sport in that one race."

A highlight of the rites was the unveiling at last of the radical keel that the Australians had kept carefully shrouded from view since their arrival in Newport last spring. Lexcen's design did not, as many pundits had said, sport a bulbous nose or a double trim tab. Its magic lay in the two one-ton deltoid wings drooping from the bottom of what, in effect, is a normal keel turned upside down; its trim tab is very narrow, however, with a strip of plastic fairing to make it even more effective. As Australia II had amply demonstrated, the wings kept the boat from sliding with the wind when heeling and helped it stand straighter when tacking. The configuration allowed Lexcen to use a sleeker hull design so that the boat's wetted surfaces were smaller than on conventional twelve-meters, thus reducing drag.

Nonetheless, at a press conference in which his voice broke and tears welled in his eyes, Conner concluded bravely, "There's no reason for America to think we're in any position but No. 1." Some American critics claimed that Conner had paid insufficient heed to his navigator and tactician and had thereby missed some crucial wind shifts. A kindlier assessment came from Australia's Lexcen: "Dennis saved the Cup the last time [in 1980], and he deserves the credit for almost saving the Cup this time."

That night, the Auld Mug was unbolted from its pedestal at the New York Yacht Club's Manhattan mansion and taken to Newport by armored truck. Next day, at Marble House, former summer home ("cottage," in local parlance) of Harold Vanderbilt, himself an America's Cup legend, the unlovely pitcher was presented to its new owners and started the 11,620-mile trip to Perth. But first Liberty Syndicate Head Edward du Moulin gave Skipper Bertrand Liberty's dark blue burgee. Then N.Y.Y.C. Commodore Robert Stone presented Bond with "the bolt that's kept the Cup in place for 132 years." And Lexcen, who once told a reporter that he would like to steamroller the Cup and turn it into the "America's Plate," received from Stone a mangled hubcap. "I don't think there's any other country we'd rather see have the Cup," said Stone, adding that he had already been contacted by a backer willing to take up the challenge whenever the Australians defend it.

That will probably be in March 1987. It will still be called the America's Cup, after the John Cox Stevens yacht that won the trophy from the British in 1851. Meanwhile, Western Australia is girding itself for a building boom in anticipation of the challenge. At least seven new hotels are expected. There are also plans for a "yachting city," to accommodate as many as 20 challenging teams, sail lofts, dockyards and marinas, and a communications and press center. Australia III, also designed by Lexcen, is already on the drawing board and, claims Builder Steve Ward, is "better than Australia II. Two weeks after we had Australia II in the water, we knew we could build a better boat."

Ronald Reagan had a last word. At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, as the teams (only Conner was missing) stood stiffly in their blazers and slacks, the President congratulated both and offered "one final bit of advice to the Perth Yacht Club." Said he: "Don't bolt that Cup down too tightly." --By Michael Demarest. Reported by Richard Hornik/Newport and Ernest Shirley/Melbourne

With reporting by Richard Hornik, Ernest Shirley This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.