Cup Disputes: Challenger Seeks Candor (1871)

Apparently, there’s nothing new about a “losing” America’s Cup Challenger trying to seek redress against the winning club. Back in 1868 - - that's 1 8 6 8 - - Mr. James Ashbury issued the first America’s Cup challenge on behalf of England. Following his loss in Cambria to the USA in 1871, the New York Yacht Club is said to have issued a letter to his host club, regarding Mr. Ashbury's whining CLUB-BASHING.

Here’s the NY Yacht Club’s so-called response: “There are certain acts a gentleman cannot commit. Whatever the cause, Mr Ashbury evidently thinks otherwise. With an apparent unconsciousness that ought to give offence, he seems to look behind every action for an unworthy motive, and seek in every explanation evidences of concealment and want of candor."

Apparently, this sort of response to Challenger complaints remains a common one for Defenders of the America’s Cup, even today!

All Other Things Being Equal . . . Hah!

“All other things being equal” receives much over- and under-thinking back at the clubhouse. What things? When are they equal? Who says and who’s judging them?

When you win, all things definitely WERE EQUAL; when you lose, it was your competitor’s rare combination of unbelievable hull-speeds, lucky wind shifts and masterful sail trim, and uncanny ability (i.e., luck) in reading course variables. "We geniuses, for sure. We won, didn't we?"

Rarely does ANY skipper admit he or she just got darned lucky or got snookered, guessed wrong a few times, called for speed-stalling sail sets, tacked or jibed too early or late, or just plain forgot or misjudged the applicable sailing rules. The latter comes into play with on-water judges (who rarely make gross errors) and abundant armchair lawyers who surface when the racing concludes. “Now here’s what I would have done and where you went wrong, they postulize.

“Things” are NEVER EQUAL, FAIR, EQUITABLE or OBVIOUS during a sailboat race. Sailing at the America's Cup level, Biff says, is no different. In the words of the Man of Steel: It's a bird (a seagull), it's a plane (on-off, expensive, disposible), no, it's SUPERSAILING, bought and paid for by someone.

Add varying boat designs and rigging, and the professional skills of the sailors and one begins to see the tip of the Sailing Iceberg: What you see is NOT what you get and what you think is not necessarily what really is, if that makes any sense.

Let’s sum up with the following How-To Guide to winning a sailing race such as the America’s Cup. One only needs to learn as much as possible about:

* Evolving wind conditions (out of your control) where the race is being sailed, though nature rarely repeats or cooperates itself in day-to-day regattas. (Which is why sailing regattas are generally conducted over several days, optimizing the winds now and then for every participant.)
* Tide and currents (somewhat predictable): These main quantifiable and predictable, two of the variables are relatively easy to predict. But many a sailor has bet the farm on one or the other, to be unpleasantly surprised at the finish line.
* Waves, wakes and water temperature (mostly out of your control): With spectator boats, even helicopters, definitely add an element of uncertainty in these areas.
* Boat hulls: Here, sailors remain hostage to the boat’s designer(s) and mathematical wizardry, in the case of America’s Cup yachts. There are the predictive formulas and the tank-tested idea, taken out on the waters to see what really happens in full-sized boats. Rarely does boat speed match its predictors, such as velocity made good programs, since water-wind-tide-currents rarely synch-up in precise arrangement to predetermined computer predictions.
* Skippers plot and execute, tacticians judge and pray, crewmembers cheer, cry and watch nearby boats - - and everyone makes educated GUESSES regarding their next moves.
With so-called moding and remoding (changing hull, that is, keel shapes to match wind/wave conditions), some elements of boat design may be improved dramatically - - by adding length, width, size and shape to a keel - - a boat hull maximized for light winds may be adjusted for beefier ones, to an extent.
* With sails, since most are made by the same manufacturer (not all), variations in their designs remain minimal, though not really. Guessing a light-wind genoa will be needed when a heavier one should do has tripped up many a Contender and Defender.
* Finally, the dozens and dozens of different fittings, lines, line arrangements and rigging adjustors add additional elements of surprise and confusion out on the race course when another 75-footer is aimed at your broadsides or taking your wind from behind.
Not to forget the crews: Team leadership and team functioning, individual crew skills, weights, strengths and positioning, and the ongoing possibility of injury or sickness.

So, all things being equal - - never the case - - one should be able to win by “buying a race” at the America’s Cup level. WRONG!!!! There remain just too many variables.

It’s the reduction of these variables to a precise set of standards and repeatable sets and skill-sets that make the winners win, and losers also-rans. (Unless a team has a legal bent, with the nerve to go way out on a limb...beyond the race course and into the courtroom - -and what fun is this!).

Why Sailing is so Danged Interesting? (To Sailors)

Answer: It’s both physical and mental, with a foundation of advanced technologies and a dose of invention and daring-do thrown in. Watching it on TV, however, won’t capture these two pillars of sailing’s attraction, only the RESULTS. There’s a lot more to it, say all.

Some “for-instances:”

The sailing waters venue (such as in this past one, the actual FICKLE waters of Valentia, Spain, not the predicted STEADY one’s) offered major variables to both Defender and Contender, that helped or confounded each skipper at any given time.

Second, naturally, above all else (even above the MONEY spent) there’s the WIND, though these America’s Cup boats have masts so tall, the winds at the top of the mast might actually vary somewhat from what the skipper and crew feel in their faces. Winds simultaneous inspire, humble, betray, lie (when they suddenly shift or take a header), shock (when predictions turn to smoke), terrorize (mostly when spinnakers take a blast), and did I mention humble sailors world-wide?

Then, there’s the tide (up and down) and current (back and forth) in constant churn before, during and after the race. Weather services offer guidance and mathematicians make predictions based on un-measurable moon and sun forces. Gravity and global warming shake up the mix.

Heading out to the staring line, one skipper might be silently singing “happy songs” to the Wind Gods for providing the anticipated light or heavier winds on cue. Tacking around the upwind mark, however, these same friendly winds (because that’s the way they set the boat up at the dock) might come to a grinding halt (an incredibly unpleasant, nauseating curse) then blow with nature’s hidden fury in a matter of minutes. Or do both in the same race. Either way, sailors take what comes and figure that the other boat also has to contend with similar conditions—so it’s a matter of “outsmarting” them by anticipating the conditions slightly and reacting to them faster, quicker, better. Winners concentrate, react; losers drift off or react just a tad slower.

Overlay fickle weather conditions on top of hundreds of other variables and the very real possibility of what could be called “SAILING OVERTHINK” takes hold. It’s actually possible for these naturally triggered events to “freeze” the thinking of the tactician or strategist, causing a sort of second-stage hypothermia. The net-net, they become BLIND or unresponsive to actual sailing conditions, and call for wrong tacks or wrong sails at the wrong times…immediate death in sailing…to just stare into the distance, calculating the odds the other boat will break a halyard.
Sailing OVER-THINK: Bet on it most of the time!