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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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041089
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1990-09-22
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NATION, Page 42The Cup Turneth OverSan Diego loses yachting's biggest prize -- in a courtroom
Time was when yachting seemed the last preserve of the
gentleman athlete. All that changed in the 1980s, as the sport bred
enough litigious excess to make Horatio Hornblower reach for the
Dramamine. The latest episode in the salty soap opera better known
as the America's Cup series came last week, when a New York Supreme
Court justice stripped the San Diego Yacht Club of the sport's most
coveted prize.
The controversy began sailing toward the court in 1983, when,
for the first time since the competition started in 1851, America
lost the America's Cup to a high-tech upstart from Australia. Four
years later blustery Dennis Conner, losing skipper in the duel with
Australia, regained the trophy in a rousing victory Down Under. But
Conner offended losing New Zealand when he accused its crew of
cheating by racing in a fiber-glass boat.
Michael Fay, head of the New Zealand team, decided to strike
back. Citing a provision in the deed of gift, which sets out
guidelines for the competition, he challenged the U.S. to a
one-on-one rematch. San Diego had not planned on a defense until
1991. But Justice Carmen Ciparick of the New York Supreme Court,
which oversees the deed, upheld New Zealand's rogue challenge.
Complicating matters further, Fay decided to race the U.S. in
a 132-ft. monohull, instead of a 12-meter (65-ft.) boat like those
used since 1958. With time running out, Conner and his team knew
they could not design a sufficiently speedy monohull vessel of
their own. So Conner opted for a smaller, swifter, multihulled
catamaran. Justice Ciparick decided to wait to see the outcome of
the race before ruling on the legitimacy of the U.S. entry.
As expected, the U.S. catamaran blew New Zealand's monohull out
of the water in September 1988. Fay then filed suit, charging that
the U.S. had violated the deed of gift's requirements for a "fair
match." Enter the New York Yacht Club -- the Cup's custodian for
the first 132 years of its existence -- which filed an affidavit
supporting New Zealand's charge.
Last week Ciparick ruled that Conner's catamaran had created
a "gross mismatch." The decision gave the America's Cup to New
Zealand, which will host the next competition in 1991, and
torpedoed San Diego's hopes for a $1.2 billion bonanza during the
six-month competition. Conner, ironically, was in New Zealand last
week filming a commercial for a new board game called Cup Fever.
"I'm a sailor," he declared. "It offends me to see attorneys
debating America's Cups in the courts. The Cup should be fought on
the water." Amen.