A Revolution Roils The Cup

Moored in Newport while waiting more or less patiently for the competition to arrive from Australia, the three 12-meter racing yachts of Baron Marcel Bich's French Expeditionary Force were draped in bright bunting on a certain morning last week to celebrate Bastille Day. But beyond one or two polite calls of "Vive la France!" most of the U.S. spectators gathered in the capital of America's Cup racing for the second of three sets of trials to pick a U.S. defender were too concerned with witnessing a revolution at home to worry much about one that took place in France almost 200 years ago. For on this Bastille Day it seemed that the King of America's Cup Racing was about to lose his crown.

Ever since the modern revival of the sport in 1958, Olin Stephens has been as securely enthroned at the top of America's Cup design as Louis ever was in his palace at Versailles. Whenever Stephens was commissioned to design a new cup racer, it was practically taken for granted (by everyone but Stephens, who is much too sensible to believe in legends) that it would be faster than his last boat. And up to the time last week's races began, there seemed little reason to suspect any change.

In the preliminary cup trials on Long Island Sound early in June the latest Stephens Twelve, Valiant, had performed as expected over the old Stephens Twelve, Intrepid, drastically revamped for this year's campaigning by Britton Chance (SI, July 13). So the only real question two weeks ago at the start of the second trial series off Newport was whether Valiant would simply breeze into the 1970 defense as her older rival had in 1967 or whether the remodeled Intrepid would put up enough of a fight to make her work for the honor.

With more showmanship than they are noted for, the New York Yacht Club committeemen responsible for the selection of a defender put off any possible answer to this question till the third day of racing. Meanwhile, the two main-eventers tested their strength against two admitted also-rans: 12-year-old Weatherly, Valiant's venerable trial horse, which had entered the lists only to round out a foursome, and Charles Morgan's quixotic but hopeless one man band Heritage, which he designed, built, financed and skippered all by himself. During these preliminaries there was some head shaking over the fact that Intrepid beat Weatherly by a resounding three minutes and 55 seconds while Valiant's margin over the same boat was only 2:23—but this comparison was more or less meaningless since Valiant had beaten Heritage by almost 10 minutes while Intrepid beat her by only five.

Finally, on Saturday of the first week of racing, the two rivals went to the starting line together—only to have Valiant's skipper, Robert McCullough, commit so obvious a foul on Intrepid's Bill Ficker that he himself acknowledged it before Ficker could even hoist a protest. In real cup racing this would have meant one victory for Intrepid, but since these were trials the race committee merely wiped out the race and called for another start.

At the new start Ficker—the first cup skipper in memory with a true Yul Brynner head-do—quickly slid his boat into a groove, chipping to windward over a lumpy course ahead of Valiant with astonishing ease. Sailing from mark to mark at such a clip that she gained on five of the six legs sailed, Intrepid crossed the line a clean two minutes and 14 seconds ahead of the newer boat. Three days later the two boats met again and the outcome was almost identical.

These two defeats occurred in moderate airs. When the following day turned up a breeze the committee could not resist revising the schedule in order to match the two top boats once again. And once again Intrepid won.

In theory, the Observation Trials—as this round is called—are not intended to be in any way definitive. They are designed only to give the selection committee a chance to "observe" the various would-be defenders and to study their skippers and crews in action before the tough competition of the Final Trials beginning in mid-August.

Presumably then, the selection committee was still of an open mind at the start of the final race between Valiant and Intrepid on Saturday. If so, theirs must have been the only open mind left in Newport. The one-sidedness of the contests up to that point and the cautious conduct of both leading skippers had given virtually everyone, except those immediately concerned, the impression that it was all over but the picking. Sporting buttons emblazoned FICKER IS QUICKER—they might also have added "slicker"—Intrepid's crewmen seemed jubilantly self-confident in sharp contrast to the men of rival Valiant, who were beginning to show some of the sulks that always turn up in the fo'c'sle of a loser. The racing itself had been dull to the point of lifelessness. During the 12 days of competition there had been no bold jockeying for position at any start, no daring challenges to ignite one of those tacking duels in which a trailing skipper can often turn the tables on a leader by exhausting his crew in an endlessly repeated series of course changes. Even the crewmen seemed bored. "Why should I be tired?" snarled one of Valiant's men in some bitterness after one losing race during which the skipper had notably failed to challenge his rival to any feats of strength. "I only did a couple of tacks and a couple of jibes."

Then, on the last day, the picture suddenly changed. As the five-minute warning gun sounded, there developed the first bit of aggressive sailing seen throughout the trials. Heading for the line a touch early, Ficker suddenly found himself in a position that match-racing sailors have nightmares about: astern of his foe, with no hope of getting past him to leeward and no room to get past him to windward. There is no reliable way that any skipper can plan to put his opponent in such a fix, but it takes fine sailing to see such a situation developing and to take advantage of it. McCullough had done just that. His big jib momentarily backed to slow him down till the gun sounded, he had his rival trapped. Ficker had no choice but to make a full circle and head for the line again while his adversary sailed sweetly out and away. "It was the prettiest sight I ever saw," said one of Valiant's crewmen later.