Sport: Confident Challenger

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Sceptre's most radical feature is her cockpit layout. The helmsman and navigator each have their own small cockpits. The main cockpit is deep and large, designed to keep the weight of the crew low in the boat and their heads out of the helmsman's line of vision. The yawning cockpit may gulp dangerous amounts of water when the going gets rough, but Sceptre is fitted with an oversize pump to handle such an emergency.

Complete Satisfaction. Royal Yacht Squadron members who opened their pocketbooks to pay for Sceptre (cost: about $100,000) were the least concerned by the mounting criticism. According to Syndicate Chairman Hugh Goodson, the big white boat had not yet begun to race. Up to now, said he, Evaine had acted merely as a yardstick against which Sceptre's experiments with technique and equipment could be measured. He was, he said, "completely satisfied."

He had no reason to change his mind last week when Sceptre went back in the water, her bottom clean, a new mainsail set, and some brisk weather making up in the open sea off Poole. She beat Evaine three times. Wrote the London News Chronicle's yachting correspondent, Vernon Brown: "Experts are becoming more confident."