Word: sturrock
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...Going into the week with a 3-to-1 edge, the U.S.'s brilliant Bus Mosbacher swiftly closed out the best 4-of-7 series. In the kind of breezy (10 to 17 knots) but not blowy day that Weatherly likes best, he beat Gretel's Jock Sturrock to the start, soon had a healthy lead and increased it with every mark of the 24-mile, windward-leeward course. The game Aussie skipper hounded Mosbacher like a hound after a fox (cracked one spectator: "Sturrock ought to know how to spell Weatherly by now; he's seen...
...gone down to defeat before superior U.S. boats and superior U.S. seamanship. Of 55 races, the challengers had won only five*-and the last boat to do it was Britain's Endeavour, 28 years ago. But last week, off Newport, R.I., Australia's Gretel and Skipper Jock Sturrock proved to be unawed by the statistics. In the first four races of the best-of-seven series, the Aussies lost three to the U.S. defender, Weatherly, and her quiet genius, Bus Mosbacher. But Gretel did win one, and in a way that led one Aussie to proclaim: "Australians everywhere...
...only a half hour old when Mosbacher knew that he was in trouble. Beating to windward (Weatherly's strongest point) toward the first eight-mile mark on the 24-mile triangular course, he could manage only a four-length lead. Eleven times in the space of five minutes Sturrock challenged with short tacks, hoping to gain a few precious seconds, his crewmen working like demons at the coffee-grinder winches. Each time, in the brutal test of skill and muscle, Mosbacher covered, instantly at first, and then more slowly as his crew began to tire. "We were doing...
Skimming around the first buoy, Mosbacher's lead had been reduced to two boat lengths, a bare 12 sec. By the second eight-mile mark, it was still only 14 sec. Then Gretel and Sturrock stole the day. His spinnaker ballooning firm and white, Sturrock caught a great, wind-driven wave under his stern and rode it like a surfboarder on a Pacific comber. As the Australians surged past, Mosbacher's Yanks heard a roaring war whoop booming out across the water. Weatherly tried to recover, but she snapped her spinnaker pole -and then it was too late...
...Australian accent goes to jail tonight," announced a local policeman. Said a crew member, amid the debris of Gretel's headquarters pub: "This reminds me of an outback pub at shearing time." Back home, radio stations played a special Gretel Song. The Sydney Sun announced the victory: WILY STURROCK OUTFOXES AMERICANS. And for this one race, at least, Bus Mosbacher was willing to agree. "I should have stayed home," he said...