Word: newports
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Racing for the America's Cup is no cheap thrill. When the 12-meter sloops Liberty and Australia II begin tacking toward the Cup this week near Newport, R.I., multimillion-dollar investments will be on the line. With a length of about 65 ft., a sail area of 1,800 sq. ft. and a crew of ten, a yacht of this class needs a captain who is courageous with a checkbook. The Liberty and Australia II each cost an estimated $500,000 to build, excluding sails...
Such foul-weather forecasts have rattled Newport before. Yet ever since they first wrested the old silver mug from a fleet of the best yachts the British could muster in 1851, the Yankee sailors have somehow managed to beat off all comers. What is different about this America's Cup summer is not that the Americans have slipped, but that the competition has got noticeably better, especially the yachtsmen from Down Under...
...radical keel ever to hang from the bottom of a 12-meter-yacht*. Though the Aussies ostentatiously drape a shroud over the keel when the boat is hauled out after each day's sail-psych is everything in the America's Cup competition-just about all of Newport knows what Australia H's secret weapon looks like: it is bulging in the front, separates into delta wings at the rear, and could pass for a cross between a whale and the space shuttle...
Since June, when seven yachts from five nations began competing off Newport for the right to face the Americans, Australia II has repeatedly trounced not only its two Down Under rivals, Challenge 12 and Advance, but also Canada 1, France 3, Britain's Victory '83, and Italy's Azzurra, often by embarrassingly wide margins. The two other Australian boats have already been eliminated, and at week's end, as the challenger selection continued in its fourth round, Australia had compiled a record of 42 wins and only five defeats. Its closest competitor, Victory...
...yacht racing no more exciting than watching the bubbles in their glasses of Perrier. Of course, they are wrong, as this summer's battling has already shown. For the September finale, the action will heat up even more, both on the 24.3-mile-long triangular course and along Newport's palazzo-lined shore, where the late-night partying has included the likes of Britain's Prince Andrew and the Aga Khan, patron of the Italian effort...