Word: gretel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...water. The final elimination trials were at hand, and crewmen waited tensely for the starting gun that would send them off, two by two, under the stern eye of the selection committee, in pursuit of U.S. yachting's biggest prize: the right to battle Australia's Gretel next month in defense of the III in-year-old America...
Just seven miles away, off rocky Point Judith last week, the Aussie challenger was in action too-racing against her 23-year-old trial horse, Vim. No spectator fleet dogged Gretel's wake, but day after day the crews bent to their tasks under the calculating gaze of their own, one-man selection committee, the man they call "Big Daddy": Sir Frank Packer, 55, newspaper publisher, millionaire sportsman, and boss of the Down Under syndicate that has poured $700,000 into the white-hulled Aussie challenger. Last week Packer did not even take time...
...running our own trials here-trying to get ready." Changes All Around. While Gretel has been in the U.S. only five weeks, the Yanks have been racing all summer, first in a series of "observation" trials, then on the New York Yacht Club's annual cruise. Sail lockers have been overhauled, crews weeded out, tactics plotted and replotted. Now, Henry Mercer's four-year-old Weatherly came out for the finals with her pale blue hull newly painted and polished. Ross Anderson's Nefertiti, damaged by vandals fortnight ago, was repaired and ready...
Cherished Monstrosity. Whichever boat the committee chooses will be a heavy favorite to retain the America's Cup against Gretel next month. Tradition is firmly with the U.S. In in years, the U.S. has never lost a match for the quaint Victorian monstrosity that cost 100 guineas (about $500) new and remains securely bolted to the bottom of a glass trophy case in the New York Yacht Club...
...odds are enormous. Gretel is the first 12-meter yacht ever built in Australia, and her crew is untried in the boat-to-boat duels of match racing. But, says Packer, "we came to Newport for only one reason-to win," and he has spared no effort or expense. Designer Alan Payne spent twelve months and $18,000 of Packer's money testing hull models in the tank at New Jersey's Stevens Institute. The product of those tests is a 6g-ft. 5-in. hull of Honduras mahogany that took nine months to build. Gretel...