With Newport’s sailing leaders getting geared up to full court press the Oracle Team with a view to getting that regatta back to the City by the Sea, I think back on what it was like, for me, 30 years ago this month.

Sometime in early May 1980, about 2100 or so, we pulled along side a dock at Newport Offshore. Me, Jack Baxter, Phil Smidmore, Scotty McAlister and John “Steamer” Stanley, the advance party, from the Australian America’s Cup Challenge 1980 team had just finished the 14 or so hour tow up from New York city. The dank and foggy morning we had exiting the East River had  hung on hard as we motored east on Long Island Sound. Navigating in 1-2 mile visibility was believe it or not done by DR, backed up by Loran with the piloting done by the skipper, Bill Albertson, the Connecticut Broker for the John G. Alden company who had organized the tender for us.

Me and Phil had the morning shift on the 12, steering and watching out for chafe on the tow line and keeping an eye on the three spars which were lased to trestles bolted to the deck-Gotta love aluminum boats-Need to secure the mast trestles? simply drill a holes in the deck and bolt ‘em on.…

Actually it was a  pretty dreary ride on the 12. No boats  or shore line to look at and we had to take it in short turns to keep in the wake of the tender, so one had to pay attention to steering and 12 meters are god awful heavy on the wheel so  it was pretty tedious I recall on the boat. Sometime in the middle of the day we swapped over to the tender and Scotty and Steamer I think got onto the 12. Jack, being our navigator and nominal Adult Supervision stayed on the tender all the time.

On the tender the time was spent looking at the chart, peering into the radar,  munching on sandwiches, yarning with Bill and hearing some of his better  North-East Yacht Brokerage sea stories and getting the occasional zizzz. Naturally being a delivery, the boredom (and the weather) broke at dark as the fog lifted and the breeze converted to a hard, blustery nor-wester. This all happened at, of course point Judith, (Where you turn north to get to Newport, coming from the south west-Long Island Sound) and so the last couple of hours or so were steaming up to Brenton Tower in 25 plus knots and a 45 degree, or so it felt, cold, hard breeze. Cold and wet. And I was INSIDE the tender, a Grand Banks 42.

Newport Offshore was at the time a large ship yard and marine located on the next chunk or waterfront south of Christies. Today it is time share condos…..Being such a prominent yard it was the hope of choice for the Bermuda race early birds, so we had a bit of a squint at  the latest from Peterson, Holland and Frers. It is possible to believe that there was no one else designing IOR boats based on the turn out of these three.

Still, we were cold wet and back in Newport.

So of course the first thing any self respecting Australian 12 meter crew did, after securing the boat, was to beet feet for the Candy Store. Where of course we ran head long into some of the Courageous guys warming up after what was I guess a fruitless day trying to sail in no wind and fog.

We spent some time warming up with them, catching up on what ever BS they wanted to chum us with regarding who was fast who was not and why, probably dropping a few hints as to how fast WE were, after the refit the boat had undergone in 1979 and similar yacht club bar antics. We knew many of these guys, LJ, Stretch Ryder, Ritchie Boyd, from the 1977 challenge and the Congressional Cup we had raced in March in Long Beach, and the evening was pretty fine session as far as sailing yarns go.

Bob “Ben Lexcen”  Miller, our eccentric genius designer drove up from NYC in the rent a car and at some point collected us an we pottered off to the crew house. It was/is a big rambling  family home called  Founders Hall, which is still Yellow and still a dorm of the Salve Regina University in Newport on Ruggles Ave.. And I can tell you I do get odd feelings and flashes of memory of the various antics we got up to there even today as I drive past it as I do pretty often.

Next up, some of the adventures in getting the  boat of the ship, into the water and through New York City. And I do have pictures to prove it all too…. Chemical prints from the Drug store-Remember those? Just have to scan them in…