THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 6, 1995 TAG: 9505060456
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: HANS C. NOEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
It was a gutsy move.
As gutsy as the Babe calling his shots from the plate. As gutsy as Joe Namath guaranteeing a Super Bowl victory.
In 1851, John Cox Stevens had a boat built, took it 3,200 miles across the Atlantic and challenged the British on their home waters.
And he won.
Stevens had more in mind than bragging rights. He built the 102-foot, jingoistically named America as a money-making scheme.
He and a syndicate of sailors from the infant New York Yacht Club planned to bet British sailors - who ruled sailing in the 1850s the way Americans rule basketball today - that his yacht could whip theirs.
He knew what he was doing. America was fast - it crossed the Atlantic in an amazing 20 days. But British ships also were fast. Deep down, Stevens was a little worried. He had no reason to be. On the way into port in England, America anchored to wait out a fog. When the fog lifted, the British ship Lavrock was sailing back and forth off the bow, taunting the Yanks.
Stevens took the bait and pulled the anchor. America passed Lavrock in five minutes.
But Stevens' hopes of gambling on his yacht were dashed. If you want someone to bet against your free throws, you don't walk onto the court raining threes.
The Americans had traveled 3,200 miles to the Brits' playground, and now they couldn't get a game.
Every sailor in the Royal Yacht Squadron politely declined any opportunity to be embarrassed by the Americans. It took the embarrassment potential of the London press to change their minds.
``There will be some question as to the pith and courage of our men,'' The Times of London declared, if America went home without having found a single seaman willing to take up the gauntlet.
The Brits relented. OK, OK, they said, we'll let Stevens enter his yacht in the annual race around the Isle of Wight, for a chance to win the One Hundred Guinea Cup - against 14 of Britain's finest.
Sailing around the island takes more local knowledge than pure speed. The deck may have been stacked against the Yanks, but lest the suspense become unbearable, America won. Handily.
America got off to a slow start, but Yankee ingenuity came to the rescue: Stevens and his men took a shortcut.
The leaders sailed out around a light anchored off the tip of the island. Custom said that was part of the course, but the Americans knew little of and cared less for local custom. They cut inside and took the lead.
Legend has it (and it is only legend) that Queen Victoria, watching the race, asked an attendant which boat took first. ``The America, Ma'am,'' he said.
``Which is second?''
``Ah, your Majesty, there is no second.''
At least not for 18 more minutes, when Aurora crossed the line.
But the Royal Yacht Squadron was no more gracious in 1851 than today's sailors are. A protest was quickly filed against America for the shortcut. But the race committee, perhaps eager to be done with the Yankees, said the race instructions were vague and awarded the trophy to Stevens.
The Americans did get one match race for a wager. Stevens won 100, or $500, not much for the $20,000 investment in the boat. So the syndicate sold America to an Irishman and went home with a $1,750 profit - and one ugly silver cup.
Not much was thought of the huge trophy until shortly before Stevens died in 1857. The syndicate then gave it to the New York Yacht Club and laid down the rules for the British - or any other foreigner - to take back America's Cup.
The challenger must sail across the Atlantic to New York and come in first against a fleet of U.S. boats, duplicating the feat of America. The British did not jump at this offer.
When James Ashbury, the British owner of Cambria, finally bit in 1870, he was thrashed by a 15-boat defender fleet, finishing 10th.
But Ashbury appealed to the keepers of the cup to allow him to race an American mano a mano for the trophy.
George L. Schuyler, the only surviving member of the syndicate, agreed that the the cup's Deed of Gift could be interpreted to allow a match between two boats.
But the New York Yacht Club didn't give up all its advantage. In a best-of-seven series, the club would be allowed to change which boat it sailed - up until the morning of each race. Dennis Conner's decision to switch to Young America for the 1995 series seems downright restrained by comparison.
The Americans kept winning, and the conventions that govern the race evolved throughout the New York Yacht Club's 132-year winning streak, the longest in sports.
In 1928, the competitors stopped racing in anything that floated in favor of a specific kind of boat - first the J class, then, after World War II, the 12-meter class.
Dennis Conner was sailing a 12-meter when he became the first American to lose the cup by falling to Alan Bond's Australia II in 1983.
Conner yanked the America's Cup back to the Yanks in 1987. But before he could catch his breath, New Zealand's Michael Fay started reading the Deed of Gift a little too closely, and he started getting ideas.
Fay built the 123-foot, jingoistically named New Zealand, brought it across the Pacific this time and challenged Conner.
Conner looked at Fay's technological terror, looked at his own Stars & Stripes, and got nervous.
So the San Diego Yacht Club presented its own technological triumph in a catamaran with a wing for a sail - a sailboat by only the broadest definition.
But the courts let them race, and the cup stayed in San Diego. by CNB