America Has Four To Defend Cup

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30287, 13 November 1963, Page 32

America Has Four To Defend Cup

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, November 12. At least four American 12-metre yachts—including two new ones—will meet next year in trials to pick the defender of the America’s Cup, according to the New York “Herald Tribune.”

The United States, which successfully beat off the Australian challenger, Gretel, last year, is being challenged by Britain in 1964, the races to be held off Rhode Island. The newest candidate for the cup defence, as yet unnamed. is now under construction in Stamford, Connecticut. A Delaware yachtsman and industrialist. Mr Pierre S. du Pont 111, announced yesterday that he is the leader of a syndicate backing the new yacht The yacht's designer, Mr A. E. Luders, said yesterday 30 men and women had contributed to the 500,000-dollar project, the “New York Times” reported. She will be built by the same company which constructed Weatherly, the successful defender against Gretel. A second new 12-metre yacht is being built by a New York syndicate at City Island, New York. In addition to the two new

yachts, at least two other boats will be seeking the honour of meeting the British challenger next September. Nefertiti, the only new boat built in 1962, and runner-up to Weatherly in the final trials, is scheduled to campaign again in somewhat altered form. Her keel has been changed in contour and shortened. Her rig, once overbalanced, will be corrected before she is launched at Marblehead, Massachusetts, early next year. Having Third Try Commodore Chandler Hovey, who has been associated with cup defence efforts since 1930, plans to give his 1958-built Easterner a third try. She is currently laid up with two contemporaries. Weatherly and Columbia. whose futures are uncertain. Columbia is ready if a purchaser meets the price—not reported—set by the estate of her late owner, Mr Paul W. Shields. ■Weatherly’s owners said after she beat Gretel that the boat would be retired. However, it is possible she might be raced again, perhaps as a trial horse in the trials, the “Tribune” said.