Yachting: Intrepid Indeed

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The third America's Cup race was over, and Jock Sturrock, helmsman of Australia's Dame Pattie, sat in Newport's Thames Street Armory answering reporters' questions. What, specifically, was the challenger's main problem? Sighed Sturrock: "The hull." Why hadn't Jock tried to backwind the U.S.'s Intrepid at the start? "On the performance of the two boats, I don't think it would have made very much difference." What was his overall impression of Pattie? "Theoretically, she was designed for winds of twelve to 14 knots, but I would say five to ten knots was more like it."

Thus the Aussie skipper could only say that if there had been practically no wind at all at Newport, R.I., last week, Dame Pattie might have been competition for Bus Mosbacher and the U.S. defender, Intrepid. As it was, the winds ranged from seven to 22 knots, and Pattie lost three straight races by wide margins. On not one single point of sailing did the Australian 12-meter yacht prove superior.

She never led at any mark in any race, and the most embarrassing moment of all for the Aussies occurred in the third race when, midway through the opening, windward leg, a 12-ft. Beetle Cat boat piloted by two youths capsized directly in the path of the onrushing Intrepid. Mosbacher had to veer off sharply; in the process, Intrepid caught a blast of air from a Coast Guard rescue helicopter that wrapped her mainsail around the backstay, cost her more than 30 sec. of racing time. She still beat Dame Pattie to the first mark by 1 min. 21 sec.

Fair Show, Heavy Odds. Bus Mosbacher once again demonstrated why he is regarded as the best match-racing skipper in the world. Confident and relaxed, he permitted Pattie to cross the starting line first in all three races—meanwhile steering Intrepid to windward, where the breeze was fresher and the going faster. His well-drilled crewmen twice outgamed the Australians in short-tacking duels, and their sail handling was consistently superior.

By week's end it seemed obvious that the U.S. had the better skipper, the better crew—and the better boat. Intrepid knifed cleanly through the 3-ft. to 10-ft. swells while Pattie was hobbyhorsing badly. Intrepid's Dacron and nylon sails also were clearly superior to Pattie's, which were cut from an Australian fab ric called Kadron. The Aussies, who had spent upwards of $750,000 to mount their challenge, were frankly glum. "We just want to get this over with and go home," said Aussie Crewman Billy Burns.

Indeed, the odds against any foreign boat ever beating a U.S. America's Cup defender looked so heavy that there was some talk of retiring the 116-year-old Cup, or changing the competition —perhaps to one-design racing, which would test the talents of crews and skippers more than the genius of architects. "That would be ridiculous," insisted Intrepid Architect Olin Stephens. "This business of a country designing and building its own boat has captured the world's imagination."