The 1988
America's Cup
The America's Cup is a sailing competition and the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one from the yacht club that currently holds the trophy (known ...
was the 27th America's Cup regatta, and was contested between the defender,
San Diego Yacht Club represented by
''Stars & Stripes H3'', and the challenger, the
Mercury Bay Boating Club represented by
New Zealand Challenge's ''
KZ-1''. Run under strict
Deed of Gift rules, the regatta was won by San Diego Yacht Club, in a two-race sweep.
Challenge and response
The 1988 America's Cup was the first hostile Deed of Gift challenge.
Dennis Conner had won the America's Cup for
San Diego Yacht Club on February 4, 1987, at the
1987 America's Cup
The 1987 America's Cup was the twenty-sixth challenge for the America's Cup.
The American challenger '' Stars & Stripes 87'', sailed by Dennis Conner, beat the Australian defender '' Kookaburra III'', sailed by Iain Murray, in a four-race swe ...
. In July, New Zealand banker
Michael Fay went to the San Diego Yacht Club and issued a Notice of Challenge from the Mercury Bay Boating Club of New Zealand, which was based on a strict reading of the Deed of Gift. The Fay challenge stipulated that the boats to be sailed would be defined only by the details of the Deed, namely single masted yachts no more than at the waterline and that the race would be held the following year in 1988. He proposed to bring a 90-foot racing yacht for his challenge boat.
San Diego Yacht Club, who wanted to continue running the Cup regatta in
12-metre class
The 12 Metre class is a rating class for racing sailboats that are designed to the International rule. It enables fair competition between boats that rate in the class whilst retaining the freedom to experiment with the details of their designs. ...
yachts, initially rejected Fay's challenge out of hand. Fay then took the dispute to the
New York State Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...
, which on 25 November 1987 declared the challenge valid and instructed San Diego Yacht Club to meet the challenge on the water, brushing aside the twenty-one 12 Meter syndicates that had declared their intention of racing in a 1991 America's Cup regatta.
The unconventional challenge was met with an unconventional response. As the challenge used the original Deed of Gift as its basis, there were no explicit class or design requirements other than that the boat was to be or less at the waterline if it had one mast. Thus San Diego Yacht Club and the Sail America Foundation chose the assuredly faster multi-hull design.
On 5 May 1988 the Cup returned to the courts with Michael Fay seeking a court ruling that the catamaran was an invalid defender. The court instead ruled that the cup should be contested on the water, and any further legal action should be delayed until after the race.
Boats
The New Zealand challenger was
''KZ-1'', a monohull with a crew of 30 to 40. The boat was launched in March 1988 and regarded as the fastest monohull at that time for its size.
[ ] ''KZ-1'' now resides outside the
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...
in downtown
Auckland
Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...
, New Zealand.
San Diego Yacht Club responded by building two
catamaran
A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...
s, one with a conventional soft sail (''Stars & Stripes S1''), and the second with a
Scaled Composites
Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to d ...
-built wing mast (
''Stars & Stripes H3''). The wing-masted boat demonstrated superior performance, and after being modified to improve its structural integrity was chosen for the successful defense.
Crew
''KZ-1'' was skippered by
David Barnes and the afterguard included tactician
Peter Lester, navigator Richard Morris,
Tom Schnackenberg and
Bruce Farr.
The crew, which numbered 40 also included
Jeremy Scantlebury,
Robert Salthouse,
Don Cowie,
Warwick Fleury,
Mark Hauser,
Andrew Taylor,
Edwin Askew, Marcus Brown, Bill Handy, Keith Hawkins,
George Jakich, Paul Matich, Rubin Muir,
Chris Salthouse,
Alan Smith,
Nick Heron, David Hurley, Peter Warren,
Michael Fay, lawyer Andrew Johns, designer Russell Bowler, Clive Brown,
Mike Drummond, Bob Graham, Murray Greenhalgh, Peter Jeromsen,
Lance Manson and Chris Wilkins.
Rod Davis was New Zealand's sailing coach.
''Stars & Stripes'' was skippered by
Dennis Conner and the crew included navigator
Peter Isler,
John Marshall
John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remai ...
,
Malin Burnham,
Carl Buchan, Cam Lewis,
John Barnitt,
Bill Trenkle, Duncan MacLane, Louis Banks, John Grant, John Wake,
Randy Smyth and tactician
Tom Whidden.
Results
Aftermath
After the completion of the races the battle returned to the courts and on 28 March 1989 the cup was awarded to New Zealand on the basis that the competition between a monohull and a catamaran was a gross mismatch and not in the spirit of friendly competition between countries.
However the Appellate Division reversed that ruling, saying the Deed of Gift does not limit design or say anything about the number of hulls a yacht may have, and the reversal was confirmed on 26 April 1990 by the New York Court of Appeals.
[
] Thus San Diego retained the cup, defending it again at the
1992 America's Cup.
The 27th America's Cup put an end to the 12-metre era of yachts as the
International America's Cup Class
The International Americas Cup Class is a class of racing yacht that was developed for the America's Cup between 1992 and 2007. These yachts, while not identical, were all designed to the same formula to offer designers the freedom to experiment ...
was developed for the next Cup defense.
The
2010 America's Cup
The 33rd America's Cup between Société Nautique de Genève defending with team Alinghi against Golden Gate Yacht Club, and their racing team BMW Oracle Racing was the subject of extensive court action and litigation, surpassing in acrimony ev ...
shared some similarities with the 1988 Cup in that it was also the subject of intense litigation, and the precedent set by the 1988 court decision guaranteed that any non-mutual consent match would be sailed in the fastest boats legal under the Deed: multihulls. The build up to the 2010 America's Cup was slightly different though, in that a challenge had already been accepted by defending yacht club
Société Nautique de Genève
The Société Nautique de Genève is a yacht club based in Geneva (Switzerland). It was founded in 1872 with the goal of developing nautical sports and high level sailors. Currently the club has about 3000 members.
The club held the America's Cup ...
, but the courts decided that the challenger did not meet the requirements of the Deed of Gift governing the cup and forced the defender to accept a challenge from the
Golden Gate Yacht Club
The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) is a San Francisco, California, U.S. based yacht club founded in 1939.
History
In 1939 the first members built a clubhouse on a barge in the San Francisco Marina. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely ...
instead.
References
External links
Think this is ugly? You should have seen 1988''Scuttlebutt News'', April 2, 2009
''New York Times Magazine'', May 29, 1988
{{America'sCup
1988
America's Cup, 1988
Sports competitions in San Diego
1988 in American sports
America's Cup
The America's Cup is a sailing competition and the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one from the yacht club that currently holds the trophy (known ...
1980s in San Diego