Crossing tacks with the two John Bertrands

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 48

Crossing tacks with the two John Bertrands

By

JOHN COFFEY

Once the initial skirmishes are concluded and the New Zealanders accompany an assortment of Americans and possibly Europeans through to the America’s Cup challenge semi-finals, one name is certain to be very much in the minds of Chris Dickson and his yachtsmen.

Whether they are pitted against America 11, the pride of a New York Yacht Club still smarting from being relieved of the chore of dusting the venerable old trophy, or looking ahead to Australia’s cup defence, John Bertrand will be frequently mentioned in their tactical planning.

It was John Bertrand who ended New York’s cup monopoly three years ago when he skippered Australia II in such a manner that Australians and New Zealanders discovered that yacht matchracing could be more interesting than watching

paint dry, grass grow, and, sometimes, footballs being kicked into touch. And it is John Bertrand who will be at the side of John Kolius in the New York Yacht Club’s bid to restore pride and trophy to where they were situated for 132 years.

Confused? Then so were scores of competitors in the Olympic monotype Finn class as John Bertrand captured the Games bronze medal for Australia in Canada in 1976, and John Bertrand claimed the silver medal for the United States in the same event of the 1984 Games off Long Beach. In between those two regattas, the Finn fellows solved the problem of having two John Bertrands from distinctly different continents. The Australian, because he

was first, was dubbed the “real” John Bertrand; his namesake, citizen of the United States, had to be content with the title of “plastic” John Bertrand. A touch of irony there, for sure — an American tagged as being somewhat synthetic, yet caught up in the controversy of United States protests concerning “plastic fantastics.” Although the comparatively amateur sphere of Olympic Finn sailing is oceans away from being compared with the multimillion dollar extravaganza presently churning the waters off Fremantle, it is presumed John Bertrand, American, is still a totally decent bloke.

Bertrand was exactly that when he competed in Auckland during the 1980 World Finn Gold Cup series. There was genuine regret among competitors

and observers from many nations when, for the second consecutive year, Bertrand was a tantalisingly close runner-up to his rich-kid countryman, Cam Lewis. At least this Bertrand had his name inscribed on the Gold Cup as victor in Mexico two years earlier. The Australian version had been second to Joery Bruder (Brazil) on Italian waters in 1972, and third behind Chris Law (Britain) and Jonty Farmer (New Zealand) at Brisbane in 1976. He did not cross tacks with his namesake at Auckland, but his brother, Lex Bertrand, was there. By 1980 John Bertrand (the one who hails from the world’s biggest island) had apparently decided there were other courses and classes to conquer. A chap named Alan Bond — wealthier even than Cam Lewis’s folks — undoubtedly had something to do with the transition. So it transpired that the “real” John Bertrand reached the greatest man-to-man, boat-to-boat showdown in yachting some time before his “plastic” counterpart. Bertrand, the Aussie who could not shake off the consolation of minor placings in his single-handed Finn, was to win the most momentous prize of all off Newport, Rhode Island. The cynics would say that Bertrand only just got a vastly superior craft home ahead of an outgunned boat that was kept in contention by the brilliance of its helmsman, Dennis Conner. But even cynics probably do not talk in praise of Conner these days. Meanwhile, John Bertrand (U.S.A.), disappointed by the boycott of the 1980 Olympics — “we should go,” he had said in Auckland, “because the yachting is in Estonia, and the Estonians have no friendship for the Russians who they regard as invaders” — was still at the tiller of his Finn. The tussle for the Finn class gold medal was one of the most dramatic of the 1984 Olympic Games, on sea or land. It became a three-way contest between a New Zealander,

Russell Coutts, an American, Bertrand, and a Canadian, Terry Neilson. Coutts displayed outstanding fortitude to overcome not only his skilled rivals, but also a painful attack of boils on his backside. He then endured an agonisingly long suspicion that his equipment might not meet the weighing-in regulations before being confirmed as the winner. Such was the American hype, Bertrand’s silver medal might have been bitter-sweet reward,* but the quality of the fleet is emphasised by the bronze medallist, Neilson, subsequently being given the task of skippering Canada’s America’s Cup flagship. Having almost reached the pinnacle of amateur yachting, John Bertrand came to be looked upon as just the person to help regain the cup lost to, aw shucks, John Bertrand. No doubt the gentlemen of the New York Yacht Club made discreet, but thorough, investigations into his background. It would not have done if an ancestor had ridden with Ned Kelly instead of Paul Revere. But when Dickson and associates headed off Kolius in their first America’s Cup meeting, John Bertrand, now tactician on America 11, might have pondered that New Zealanders cover nautical miles quickly even when not kept in a constant state of agitation by a rash of hard, inflamed, suppurating tumours. The “real” John Bertrand has been keeping a weather eye to all this, of course. No longer an actual combatant, he is a director of the Alan Bond Defence Syndicate, which has first to demolish the aspirations of three other Australian groups before earning the right to defend the prize won in 1983. At least the lure of the America’s Cup has left the Finn class yachties to get on with their own business in a little less confused fashion than when they were forever being confronted by John Bertrands whose native tongues bore some similarity to English.