1967

Excerpt from THE ADMIRAL'S CUP by Bob Fisher

But the Aussies were not crying in their beer. They had done more than might have been expected at their first attempt and they were to return home much the wiser and to make an impact on their country's ocean racing, the like of which no one down-under might have dreamed. Yet, in Plymouth, the Australian team manager, Mervyn Davies, reversed what he had said in Cowes before the final race. Then he had said, "Win, lose or draw, we will be back to keep or to win your Admiral's Cup." In Plymouth he qualified this by saying, "We are too small a country to raise two first-class teams in one year and in 1967 we will be contesting the America's Cup. We will be back but not next time." How some sailors would have been grateful if Davies' words had rung true.

Left: Penduick. Click for larger image.

Unfortunately for them there were sailors in Sydney who were not interested in the challenge that Dame Pattie was making in Newport. They had smelled the scent of success and resented having had it whisked from under their noses. They realised they needed different boats from the ones they had sent to Britain in 1965 and they were prepared to do something about it. There was no harm, thought Sir Robert Crighton-Brown, in copying a successful boat. He therefore commissioned Camper & Nicholsons to build him one to the same designs as the 46 foot Quiver IV. Balandra soon proved that she was the fastest boat of her size to windward in Australia and was a universal selection for the team.

Bob Miller (now Ben Lexcen) was a young Sydney sailmaker who had designed several successful dinghies and won more than his fair share of races. He collaborated with Ted Kaufman on the design of the latter's 40 foot Mercedes III (no one to this day, apart from the two of them, knows exactly how the design work was distributed). Kaufman knew the value of a light boat but had to find a way around the RORC rule concerning scantlings. These almost ensured that a light boat would be heavily penalised. But there was to be no denying Kaufman his aim. He found a builder in Cec Quilkey who agreed to build the boat using cold-moulded Oregon.

Mercedes III made an immediate impact after her launch. Her first fourteen starts produced no less than nine firsts, a second and two thirds. Her selection was automatic.

Left: Caprice of Huon. Click for larger image.

The other team member was the 1965 success, Caprice of Huon. She was fifteen years old but far from dead, as she was to prove five years later when she came within a breath of winning the 635 mile Sydney-Hobart Race.

Two Sparkman & Stephens one-tonners, Clarionet and Roundabout, began mopping up the Solent prizes in such a way in 1966 that people had to sit up and take notice. They took top honours in the Morgan Cup and often beat much bigger boats level around the buoys. Where they differed was in having the keel and rudder separated. The bigger boat owners took note and Dennis Miller had the hull of Firebrand altered in this way and, after a slight flutter when the skeg came off during the Transatlantic Race, she made the team for a second time. She was joined by the 44 foot Noryema V, also with a separate fin and skeg rudder, but from the board of Camper & Nicholsons, and Arthur Slater's Prospect of Whitby.

Two more countries joined the fray that year, with an entry from Finland replacing the Swedish team, and one from Spain with just two boats. It was the debut year, too, for Eric Tabarly who three years earlier had won the singlehanded Transatlantic Race and become a national hero in France, decorated with the Legion d'Honneur by General de Gaulle himself. Tabarly led the French team with the 59 foot Pen Duick III, an aluminium boat with a wishbone schooner rig.

In the Channel Race Pen Duick III showed the rest of the fleet a clean pair of heels. She led from start to finish and won from Germany's Rubin with 23 minutes to spare. It had been a largely light weather race with the wind freshening to force 5 south-westerly in the later stages. It was a reach all the way round and Tabarly's schooner set everything she could. But the real writing was on the wall, and in an Australian hand. Mercedes and Balandra were third and fourth and Caprice of Huon, in the hands of Gordon Reynolds, her mate in 1965, was seventh. For Britain Noryema V, Firebrand and Prospect were sixth, eighth and twelfth to place second to Australia but 26 points behind.

Honours between the two leading teams were much more even in the Britannia Cup and no one else got a look in. Not after the protests had been heard and a fact of course error brought to light, but before that it appeared that Dick Carter's Rabbit II had won the day for the USA. He was protested by one of the French team for passing the wrong side of the starting gate at the beginning of the second round (those Cowes Week sailing instructions again!) and although the protest was thrown out because the French yacht had not flown a protest flag, Carter realised that he had not sailed the proper course and withdrew his declaration. By a twist of irony, Pen Duick III was disqualified for not signing a declaration! This handed the race to Ted Kaufman's Mercedes III which, with Caprice third and Balandra seventh, gave the Australians another win, this time by one point from Britain whose second, fourth and sixth for Firebrand, Noryema V and Prospect kept the team in sight of the leaders.

Carter got his revenge in the New York Yacht Club Cup. Rabbit II won by a minute and a half from Firebrand but the next three places went to Mercedes III, Caprice of Huon and Balandra and the party in the Regency Club, where the Australian team always resided during the Admiral's Cup, was "a beaut". These placings gained them 17 more points on Britain and the USA and they led by 285 to 241 going into the Fastnet.

It was not a spectacular Fastnet in weather terms, although the Australians could justifiably claim that it was for them. So, too, could Eric Tabarly who won the Fastnet Cup with Pen Duick III, two and a half hours ahead of the next Admiral's Cup boat, Bill Snaith's Figaro IV for the USA.

Plymouth was in for a shock when the Australian trio finished with Mercedes III, Balandra and Caprice of Huon in third, fourth and seventh places to win the race on points (they won all four) and to take the Admiral's Cup for the first time. It did not really matter that "the Poms couldn't get the beer cold enough", they would have drunk the amber nectar from hot galvanised buckets that day. It was not so much that they won the Cup, it was the impressive margin of 107 points by which they had done so. And to think that they were announced as non-starters in this event two years earlier. Just to rub in their superiority, Mercedes III, Balandra and Caprice of Huon finished one, two and three in the individual points table.

	CHANNEL RACE				BRITANNIA CUP				NEW YORK Y.C. CUP				FASTNET RACE
	hr.	mn.	sc.	Pts.	hr.	mn.	sc.	Pts.	hr.	mn.	sc.	Pts.	hr.	mn.	sc.	Pts.	Total Points
AUSTRALIA
BALANDRA	28	46	28	48	17	05	48	21	14	38	01	23	83	07	51	72	164
MERCEDES III	28	37	19	50	16	34	17	27	14	34	03	25	82	04	23	75	177
CAPRICE OF HUON	29	31	44	42	16	54	01	25	14	35	52	24	84	35	11	63	154
				140				73				72				210	495
GREAT BRITAIN
NORYEMA V	29	14	48	44	16	55	18	24	14	47	37	12	85	46	42	54	134
FIREBRAND	29	59	33	40	16	36	12	26	14	32	13	26	84	49	41	60	152
PROSPECT OF WHITBY	30	31	22	30	16	59	09	22	14	43	26	17	101	41	29	33	102
				114				72				55				147	388
U.S.A.
THUNDERBIRD	30	16	10	36	17	08	05	18	14	49	49	10	85	05	43	57	121
FIGARO IV	32	43	37	8	18	11	04	12	14	43	21	18	81	04	26	78	116
RABBIT II	29	13	56	46	-	-	-	-	14	30	43	27	95	17	16	48	121
				90				30				55				183	358
FRANCE
PEN-DUICK III	27	57	17	54	-	-	-	-	14	57	50	6	78	39	19	81	141
ORYX	30	27	07	34	17	08	03	19	14	44	02	15	83	46	01	66	134
GERFAUT II	32	17	09	16	-	-	-	-	14	40	22	21	100	29	34	39	76
				104				19				42				186	351
GERMANY
RUBIN	28	20	01	52	17	08	01	20	14	46	52	13	83	25	07	69	154
JAN POTT III	20	15	43	38	17	58	39	14	14	42	17	20	106	39	27	18	90
HAMBURG VII	31	21	57	22	17	33	16	16	15	23	15	4	113	48	15	9	51
				112				50				37				96	295
FINLAND
LYGAIA	30	29	15	32	16	58	31	23	14	43	33	16	99	30	16	42	113
CAN CAN III	31	06	52	24	18	00	20	13	14	59	27	5	98	28	53	45	87
EVA II	31	59	38	20	17	24	18	17	14	38	15	22	104	37	46	27	86
				76				53				43				114	286
HOLLAND
PIERRETTE III	32	35	22	10	-	-	-	-	14	51	43	9	112	59	52	12	31
ZEEZOT VAN VEERE	30	57	14	28	17	33	28	15	14	49	46	11	103	32	12	30	84
TONNERRE DE BRESKENS	32	04	10	18	-	-	-	-	14	44	57	14	101	01	01	36	68
				56				15				34				78	183
IRELAND
MOONDUSTER	30	57	34	26	18	26	25	10	-	-	-	-	93	10	52	51	87
JAYNOR	33	00	57	6	18	13	48	11	14	55	15	7	104	51	09	21	45
FIRE DANCER	33	14	56	4	-	-	-	-	14	53	41	8	-	-	-	-	12
			36					21				15				72	144
SPAIN
ARTAKO	32	17	36	14	-	-	-	-	14	42	33	19	104	45	06	24	57
KARMATAN IV	32	22	17	12	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	109	51	32	15	27
			26					-				19				39	84