America’s Cup World Series Chicago
Heart of America Challenge Chicago Yacht Club’s Attempt to Win the America’s Cup Excerpts from past Blinker magazines supplied by FRED GORR, Additional Summary by ERNIE SUMMERS, Submitted by CYC History Committee
ebruary 1985 Blinker - An enthusiastic, overflow crowd in CYC’s Main Dining Room on December 6, 1984 was ready for this challenge. Though skipper Buddy Melges was stranded in a snowstorm, Commodore Gable, Gary Jobson, Gene Kinney and Eric Schlageter painted the picture of how the America’s Cup can come to reside in Chicago at the CYC, and described how exciting a victory parade down Michigan Avenue would be. Spreading the word is one of the major efforts at this stage of the campaign. Funds generated so far are sufficient to begin the effort. Designing, building, and campaigning a 70-foot, state-of-the-art racing machine is what has to be done. Gary and Buddy filled several pages with names of potential crew members.
F
April 1985 Blinker - Americans are suddenly very aware of the Challengers’ Elimination Series of the America’s Cup; never before had we had to battle a whole fleet, just to get a chance to sail for the America’s Cup. But the Aussies changed that all in 1983 when they took the Cup down to Perth and dared the rest of the world to come and get it. Twenty-four yacht clubs from around the world paid the $12,000 Australian entry fee. Ten of the twenty-four are American clubs, leaving fourteen among Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, England, Canada and New Zealand. Over fifty pages of conditions were proposed and included were proposals that the crew of eliminated yachts may not sail on remaining challengers and that no form of assistance or support be allowed between challengers. If taken literally, this would have disqualified a challenger if two competing crew members had dinner together or loaned a screwdriver to another challenger.
June 1985 Blinker – Chicago Yacht Club’s America’s Cup Challenge is rolling along. Tests of the first model began on May 23rd. This one-third scale model is 23 feet long and is specially built to allow keels and certain underwater sections to be interchanged to test different configurations. We are particularly grateful for the support of two Chicago Yacht Club members whose contributions 18
Blinker | Spring 2016
purchased this first model - Tom Neill, of L. Neill Cartage Company, Inc., and the Willett Foundation. On March 28, Governor Jim Thompson hosted a reception at the new State of Illinois Center for Midwesterners interested in backing the Challenge. August 1985 Blinker – The Heart of America Challenge trail horse is now in Chicago. Clipper was purchased by the Challenge, and will be used as a practice platform for the Challenge’s sailing team. Clipper was built in Newport, RI, and her designer worked refinements into her aluminum hull, which were previously used in Courageous and Enterprise. Clipper is 65 feet long, has a beam
