Word: gretel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...week for the launching of Intrepid, the 12-meter yacht he will skipper against Australia in the America's Cup this fall. It took only half an eye to see that she was a far cry from the old Weatherly Bus sailed to victory against the Aussies' Gretel in 1962-or for that matter, from any other 12-meter ever put together...
Then there are the Australians. Mosbacher rated Gretel an "awfully good boat" when Jock Sturrock sailed her in 1962. Sturrock now has the new Dame Pattie, and that boat, as Mosbacher says, "has been beating Gretel to death" in trial races Down Under. Though Gretel's owner, Sir Frank Packer, has altered his boat for the third time, and won himself another series of trials, Sturrock & Co. will almost certainly be at Newport in September...
Last week Gretel was back in the water with her new look-sharper in the bow, smaller in the keel, wider in the beam. All her crew got was the same old look: a view of Dame Panic's transom. Five times the two boats raced, and five times Pattie won-by margins ranging from 2 min. 12 sec. to 5 min. 22 sec. Owner Packer tried switching skippers; that did not seem to help either. Gretel finally did manage to win one race-when Pattie split three jibs at the seams-but experts agreed that her cause...
Packer is the owner of Gretel, the Aussie 12-meter that lost ignominiously to the U.S.'s Weatherly in 1962. That debacle cost Multimillionaire (newspapers, radio and TV) Packer an estimated $675,000-hardly enough to dent his enthusiasm. Last year he spent about $150,000 to have Gretel rebuilt for another try, but that came to nought (TIME, January 27) when a brand new Aussie challenger, Dame Pattie, convincingly trounced Gretel in a series of shakedown races off Sydney. Nothing would do then except to rebuild Gretel yet another time. Back she went to the yard, where...
...that would probably have to wait until after next summer's America's Cup races off Rhode Island. In the meantime, Hood is concentrating on more current projects-like trying to figure out why Dame Pattie's mast keeps snapping off. In a race against Gretel two weeks ago, Dame Pattie was leading by 5 min., only 250 yds. from the finish line, when her mast collapsed. Maybe she is just too fast for her own good...