America's Cup Disaster

Australia II was not the greatest 12 in history, it was just the one that bent the rules the most. In fact, the keel design was poor and actually slowed the boat, but the tradeoff in chain girth made her the smallest hulled-largest rigged 12 in history, just what was needed for a summer in Newport against boats who did not exploit the loophole deliberately placed there by someone who would come back and use it. Many 12's that followed her were better boats.

The whole story about the 1980 class ruling (that Lexcen helped write) that winged keels were illegal , the twisting of that ruling to form the loophole for Australia II's keel to pass through, the taking of the boat to Holland to get her measured by Lexcen (was he the dutch measurer? ICR) so the rule question would not come up until after the race does not reflect well on Mr Lexcen or the sport.

But you are correct, it was not cheating.

 

It's all over. BMW Oracle wins running away. Stopped being a race at the between the windward and gybe marks.

 

Congratulations to Team USA! No Protest going forward according to Alinghi!

 

KZ7 was, and still is, the fastest all around 12 that was ever designed and built.

Despite being the fastest it did not win the AC.

 

It was not Ben Miller. It was Bob Miller, aka Ben Lexcen.

I wonder what the term "the guy behind the keel" means? Does that mean he designed the shape of the keel? Does it mean there is a photo of him with the keel located in front of him?

"The Dutch guy", more precisely "Those Dutch Guys" have some pretty good evidence showing they are not producing "revisionist history". Seems they are telling the truth.

Truth is a good thing. Political weasel words are not a good thing.

 

ah what a race today
that was nice to see them going head to head

as for the 83 race

thing is they were trying to clean up the rules favoritism and then the Aussie teem had to go pull a fast one and its been off to the races ever since

seems like even now there are some pretty serious charges being made that really aren't going to get cleared up here, or in the news media. If true, then I can just picture; in the wild world of lawyering your way to the top, that this ends up in court. Without Lexcen here to defend himself its frankly not looking to good for Australia. These other guys seem to have there ducks lined up on this thing, even just from the half dozen or so articles Ive read so far.

Lets just wait and see what happens and if it ends up in front of a judge cause you know the race comity wont touch this one with the proverbial ten foot pole

but so far Aussie 2
had essentially a variable water line and one of the protests is that it should have considered that line which made it ~12.5 meter boat.
had a bolt on and thereby adjustable keel with a wing, or adjustable appendage which was another one of the protests
and was not designed entirely by the citizens of the home country
which was also one of the protests at the time and one which might have to be revisited based on this latest information

I wonder if there is a statute of limitations concerning the race results

anyway the basic reality is Aussie 2 made a pretzel out of the rules and once the teams realized how incapable the race comity was in handling the dispute it didn't take long before there was a new set of rules.

but like it or not, if the Aussie teem did use outside help to design the boat, then it should be stripped

works that way in the Olympics I dont see why it shouldn't in the AC, or are we holding ourselves to a lower standard

the glory of the contest is in the honor of its participants

great race today though
hope all is well
B

 

I dunno. If the Dutchman grew up in Australia, and didn't return to Holland until he was an adult, he might as well be an Aussie to my way of thinking. Not a legalistic viewpoint I suppose, but it's a common-sense one. The letter of the rules may have been violated, but not the spirit; it wasn't like they went off and hired a mercenary designer with no connection to the country.

 

I dont know if the rules define anything about whats to be done in this instance either, but the issue as far as the "other" guys define it, seems pretty clear

as previously quoted

seems pretty clear that the design team was not only from out of country bur the design work was also done out of country

looks like a breach of the spirit of the contest to me

not sure what can be done about it now that might set an example to the next teem to pull that kind of stunt, but it seems either action should be taken to preserve the integrity of the race, or the race needs to be redefined and unfortunately so. The idea of a gentleman's contest between nations is one of the races finest traditions IMHO. It seems clear that the Aussie team was not in fact, an Aussie teem.

cheers
B

 

I think, even if true, its a minor transgression in the history of the cup... its was hardly a clean race now was it?

I believe it was well known that Ben needed colleagues to complete many designs, he came up with the ideas but needed a numbers guy to make it work. At the least that is what I have been told by what I consider reliable sources. So the question becomes at what point are you considered the designer? If you take any input are you compromised? That would make a lie of many designs claimed nationality. How is that to be decided 25 years after the fact with Ben dead and gone? Show some grace and leave it lye, if the Dutch man had a case he should have stood up at the time when things could have been proven... now its just hearsay.

In the end Australia II was not faster than its rivals, Bertrand was most worried about the Italians and the speed that Azure (?) showed on occasion. The keel delivered two real advantages, 1. Was psychological 2. It allowed AII to turn in a very short space without losing much speed. Handy for match racing.

I think that the result bears that out, she won but only just.

I also note that winged keels are not to be found on modern state of the art machines!

 

I agree we should let it lie. No point in going back and re-trying the case almost thirty years later, on hearsay evidence. If there isn't a statute of limitations on protests and challenges, there should be; let the original decisions stand. We're way beyond the point of "speak now, or forever hold your peace."

It isn't even worth pursuing or arguing about; it's simply an historical footnote.

 

You think the USA team(s) have been all-American?

For instance, we are talking about 1983. AII won for AUS. The boat DC sailed was designed by who? An American? Uh, no.

 

I think the point is this: If BenBob needed someone else to do the keel he should have used a resident of a community between Sydney and Perth.

Of course this is all water under the bridge. Any talk here of this being re-opened or courtroom involvement or overturning results is just making things up.

The AC Class boats had wings on their keels. They are probably still the state-of-the-art for inshore monohull design.

 

Sure, but not like that thing that hung off AII! Man that was an ugly lump

 

Azzurra was the Italian boat. Funny, there has been a persistent rumour for years that there was considerable design input for that boat from a non-Italian who had to stay hidden because of the rule.

 

To quote Melville (from Billy Budd), "Handsome is as Handsome does."

Here is a photo I snapped of the keel in the museum in Sydney. It wasn't as horrible a lump as I thought it would be. In fact, it was a lot nicer than some later designs, like the "Flying Saucer" the (B)Eagle syndicate tried in '87.

Still, as you say, not as nice as what we saw in later classes.