Trial runs planned for cup challenger

Press, 25 August 1980, Page 3

Trial runs planned for cup challenger

NZPA Newport, Rhode Island Backers of the yacht Australia have reached agreement with another foreign (syndicate to join forces in [preparation for next month's America’s Cup challenge against the United States. Yachts from four nations, Australia, Sweden, France and Britain, are currently racing in foreign elimination trials to choose the challenger. Alan Bond, the- Australian sydnicate head, said he did not think it was “appropriate at this stage” to name the other syndicate. I But he said the basis of; the deal was: if one emerged j as the challenger, the other would stay on in Newport after the foreign eliminations, to act as a trial horse in the run-up to the cup match. ‘

The mutual help arrangement is an indication of the respect the overseas boats have for each other this year, and the closeness of the two-semi-final series, which resume on Rhdde Island sound today. Australia was expected tb win her series with Sweden’s Sverige easily. The Australians had the best record in the unofficial round-robin earlier this month, the Swedes had the worst. But the series is level at

2-2. Much more heavy weather, or more Australian gear failures, and Sverige could win through. Australia’s main halyard lock has ' caused trouble in the past two races, and Bowman Scott McAllister seems to have spent most of his waking hours atop the 26 metre aluminium mast effecting running repairs.

He was up there before the start of the third race and again during the last race, while Australia was under sail in heavy seas. That is no piece of cake. “Imagine looking down on the water from the height of i a ten-storey building which is swaying 12 metres from j one side to the other,” said (shore manager Warren Jones.

McAllister was perched up in his “second home” again during yesterday’s lay day, as the Australians sorted out i their problems for what ■could have proved a decisive race today. The Swedes had called the lay day, for the simple reason that they were expecting light weather, and their best chance is in rough going. Their weather prediction was spot on, the sunshine, calm waters and 10 knot winds would not have suited them at all.

The second foreign semifinal, between Lionheart and France 3, is another gripping affair that could go either wav.

The French lead 3-2 but spirits are high in the British camp after its last-gasp win on Friday, and a couple of race days with light winds could get Lionheart through. Lionheart’s official victory margin in the 24.3 nautical mile race was “less than a second.”

Project manager Peter Buchanan said: “it was one of the most spectacular finishes in any kind of sailing I have ever seen anywhere, whether dinghy sailing, offshore or 12-metre.” What made it even .more dramatic was that the British trailed by 52 seconds at the fifth mark. It won despite a broken boom, and it saved them from elimination in the bestof-seven series. The British still faced elimination today. In fact, it has to win the next two to take the series, but at least they are still afloat.

Yesterday was also a lay day in the Lionheart-France 3 series, called by the British to repair their boom. The American defender trials, however, went ahead full steam, and so did “freedom”.

Dennis Conner and his i crew took on “Clipper” in two races. Clipper was recalled for crossing early in the first race, Freedom won i the start by 34 seconds, and was going away when the race was abandoned after just a few minutes. Clipper atoned by winning the start of the second race and leading by half a minute after the 4.5 nautical mile weather leg. But Freedom overtook her on the first reach and had opened up a 25 second gap at the third mark, where the race was abandoned. So Freedom’s over-all record against Clipper and “Courageous" since the July preliminary trials went to 38-3, including seven straight wins in these August , trials, which the New-: York yacht club’s selection committee places most emphasis on. Ted Turner, who skippered Courageous to victory in the last America’s Cup, has hadi three different masts in the; boat in the last month, I