For British sailors, the main trouble with the America's Cup is that, despite countless challenges in the intervening 150 years, they have failed to win it back.

But that did not stop the Royal Yacht Squadron, in conjunction with the New York Yacht Club, from organizing an ambitious Jubilee regatta to commemorate that first race in the same waters in which it was sailed.

And in cool, blustery conditions this morning on the Solent, the current-swept waterway that separates mainland England from the Isle of Wight, the racing started for more than 160 boats in 15 divisions.

Conspicuous by their absence, however, were the 36 yachts entered in the three marquee 12-Metre classes, and the nine boats scheduled to race in the International America's Cup Class fleet. With a building breeze that leveled off at a fresh 25 knots with gusts over 30, the conditions were deemed too boisterous for the relatively delicate twelves.

As the day unfolded, it appeared that in the case of the 12-Metres, discretion may well have triumphed over valor. Some 22 yachts retired from the racing, many with blown-out spinnakers or damaged mainsails or jibs. In that respect, it was a good day to be a sailmaker.

But it was a trying day for... read more 

 

part 4: Olin Stephens continues...
Computers in Future "Soon I intend to start using a computer. Of course, you have to know what questions to ask a computer or a tank, and the tank isn't perfect- it makes mistakes, which might lead a designer astray. And it can't possibly show you every condition a yacht gets into. Although we have rough water arrangements at Hoboken, they provide primarily for taking the seas head-on and that isn't entirely satisfactory."

 

The best of Stephen's series of models provided the hull lines for Constellation and with that conclusion the first and biggest of his headaches was over. The construction has to be supervised. Rig, sails and gear arrangements have to be made. But a Twelve-Metre's function is entirely speed- to comply with the rule and win races- and the designer doesn't have to make the compromises instead upon by cruising boat owners.

Human, Fallible Crew He doesn't have to worry about- though he probably will- the time to come when Constellation will be out of his hands and in those of a human, fallible crew. Crew- brilliant on Weatherly, middling on Columbia- was a big reason why a Stephens boat did not defend the Cup in 1962. There is always a chance that his boat may have the edge inherent ability, and the helmsman of the opposing craft emerge as a Vanderbilt or a Mosbacher.

These anxieties, at any rate, are premature. They concern the late summer days in the Brenton Reef swell of Newport, and not the winter mornings, twice a week when Olin Stephens and his brother Rod, the firm's field engineer, drive out to City Island to call in at Minneford's the yard where Constellation is building.

Minneford's has in addition to its own men many of the skilled craftsmen who built Columbia at the now shut-down Nevins yard next door. Paul Coble, who was Stephen's man-on-the-spot at Nevins in 1958 is assistant superintendent at Minneford's. Nils Halvorsen who lofted Columbia, is doing the same for Constellation. He is a small, elderly Norwegian, springy and close-grained, a man who has spent a long life in company with good wood.