Bitter Cup finale row
By
PETER HALLWRIGHT,
of NZPA in San Diego Dennis Conner and the New Zealand designer, Bruce Farr, almost came to blows at a bitter press conference on Saturday after Stars and Stripes’ 2-0 win over the Kiwis on the water. The briefing turned nasty when the Sail America design chief, John Marshall, rubbished the speed of the Farr 133 ft monohull, and then Connor joined the fray. When it was over, Farr walked over to Conner saying, “You’re a liar.” Conner, with a full load of champagne aboard, shouted, “Get off the stage, Farr. This is for winners. You’re full of shit. You’re a loser. Get outa here.” Farr was pulled away by Talbot Wilson, his public relations man. Both sides had gone into the conference preparing to let bygones be bygones, but the veneer of Stars and Stripes’s decency wore thin when Marshall said the twenty-seventh Cup contest “lacked a challenger that represented the highest level of technology.” If the series was a mismatch, he said, “it is because the challenging yacht is not fast.”- It was ridiculous to ask any designer “to match a boat that’s not fast.” Farr replied, “None of the designers who have criticised the boat have had the guts to come out and design one to race against it.” Conner chipped in, “Halsey Herreshoff’s grandfather (Nathan Herreshoff) did. It’s in the book: 1903 (Cup winner Reliance).” The Stars and Stripes navigator, Tom Whidden, suggested that earlier maxi boats were faster than Farr’s big boat, Farr produced figures from KZ-l’s performance in the second race to disprove the claims, and when Conner got the maxi racer, Jim Kilroy, to say his boat Kialoa 5 was faster, the New Zealander challenged Kilroy’s calculations as well. “I find it quite disturbing that the gentlemen on my right (the Stars and Stripes crew), some of who are professionals in an industry where I work, can sit in a press conference and tell lies,” Farr said. Conner had a shot at the New Zealand Challenge boss, Michael Fay, as well, producing a letter from Fay which showed the original challenge left open the type of boat to be used.
Fay to fight on, page 17
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Press, 12 September 1988, Page 1
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370Bitter Cup finale row Press, 12 September 1988, Page 1
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