16 LAKESIDE
March 2021
Thoughts on the America’s Cup, past and present The America’s Cup competition is being held again this year and I look forward to it with mixed emotions. When I was living in New Jersey I attended every race from 1974 to 1983, when Dennis Connor lost the cup to the Australians. For each challenge I would arrange to sail a boat from my brother’s marina up to Newport for the owner. This would not only give me a place to stay while the racing was going on but also provide a free ride out on the water to be up close and personal with the action. As you can imagine during the Cup races rooms in Newport and spectator boats are incredibly expensive. In 1983 I sailed a C&C 36 with the owner, a doctor up the 200 odd miles to the shores of Rhode Island. We had no sooner arrived and safely moored his boat than he got a phone call telling him that one of his patients had suffered a heart attack and he was needed back home! Sadly, it took the fellow two weeks to die! The doctor never made it back up to the races, so I had the boat to myself for the entire America’s Cup series. I arranged for my girlfriend to meet me there and since I did not want to take the doctor’s
and pick up a couple of these beauties as well as a container of Vinnie orange juice (I had brought a botMendes tle of champagne from our boat). We would put the frozen pastries On the on top of the engine manifold to Water heat while we handled dock lines and got the boat underway. Once everything was squared away, and our boat joined the crowd as the boat out into the mad melee of the Twelve Meter yachts were being spectator fleet without him on towed out of the harbor to the board, I found a job on a spectaracecourse, we would be seated tor boat for my girlfriend and my- on the cabin top enjoying the self. scenery, eating warm croissants This boat was a modern and drinking mimosas on a replica of a 1920s Great Lakes budget! yacht, 85 feet long and 12 feet The trip out to the race course wide so she could fit through the was always an experience. The Erie Canal. She was a real beauty, tow boats for each team had all varnished mahogany and pol- sound systems with enormous ished brass. Our job was to hanspeakers blasting music for miles dle dock lines and sell beer, then across the water. The Aussies at the end of the day hose the salt would be playing “Man from the and beer off the deck. For this we Land Down Under” by Men at got a free ride to see all the races! Work and the Americans, the There was a great bakery near theme from “Star Wars” (Rememthe dock that made the best crois- ber, this was 1983). On the trip sants in the world. At the end of out of the harbor we went past all the day, they would wrap all the the mansions lining the shore, unsold croissants in aluminum their rolling green lawns crowded foil and freeze them to sell at half with onlookers, fancy dresses and price the next day. Each morning big hats for the ladies and white we would stop at the bakery on trousers and yachting blazers for the way to our sightseeing boat the gentlemen.
For me it was the experience of a lifetime … until the end of the final race, when we had the lead, the Australians tacked, and Connor didn’t tack to cover! I could not believe it! One of the first things we teach our little kids racing their Optis at Lake Lanier Sailing Club is when you are ahead, ALWAYS, ALWAYS stay between your opponent and the next mark! I guess Dennis was sleeping when they taught that class. The result has haunted me ever since. America lost the America’s Cup, ending the longest winning streak in international sports history. Fast forward to the present: the era of gentlemen yachtsmen and amateur sailors has passed, but there is still intense competition for the Cup. The race has been commercialized to a point that it resembles NASCAR! Now, I realize that they had to do something to increase public interest and attract sponsors in order to keep the sport going. With that comes the
advantage of being able to sit in my living room in front of the TV with a beer in my hand watching the boats go around the course at speeds approaching 50 knots! The incredible graphics tell you wind and current speed and direction, boat speed and which boat is ahead and by how much. However, I really miss the days when they were competing in the Twelve Meter yachts and the boats were similar enough to the ones we sail here on Lake Lanier that any sailor could identify with all the competitors out on the course. Racing begins March 6th with two races scheduled per day and the first boat to take seven races wins the Cup. You know where I’ll be. Mendes has been sailing all his life and on Lake Lanier for the past 25 years. His family owns a marina/bar/restaurant so he has plenty of real life experiences to draw from. His favorite line: “You can’t make this stuff up.”
BE SAFE ON THE LAKE!
