America’s Cup Boats Sail Through Sag Harbor

[caption id="attachment_67781" align="alignright" width="431"] US 42 and US 46 sailing in the waters off Sag Harbor. Lori Hawkins photos[/caption]

By Gavin Menu

Racing aboard a 12-meter sailboat built for the 1987 America’s Cup in Australia, a pivotal event that snatched the world’s most coveted sailing prize back to the United States, members of Breakwater Yacht Club on August 9 had the advantage of sailing in local waters against their counterparts from the Manhattan Yacht Club.

Instead, an extreme full moon low tide at race time became the evening's controlling factor.

Traveling to an event in Newport, Rhode Island, sailors representing the New York Harbor Sailing Foundation sailed their US 42 and US 46 boats, both named America II, into Sag Harbor for an exhibition race last Wednesday evening.

A crew from Breakwater sailed US 46 and got off to a strong start until the keel grounded in the channel just off the breakwater, costing it precious time and speed in the evening’s low winds.

“We were winning there for a good period of time,” said Gus Dollinger, US 46’s 24-year-old captain. Dollinger got back to the dock at Breakwater and spoke proudly about the history of his boat, which travelled to Australia in 1987, five years before Dollinger was even born.

“You can really tell when we show up places that people really appreciate the boats,” he said. “They’re a piece of history.”

The America’s Cup was raced on 12 meters from 1958 until 1987, and all but one of the races took place in Newport with American boats controlling the cup for 132 years through 26 competitions.

In 1983, however, Alan Bond captained Australia II, with its famed — and controversial — winged keel, to a narrow victory that sent the cup to Australia for the first time. This prompted a new wave of technology and design, and in 1987 the Americans, led by Captain Dennis Connor, won back the cup aboard Stars and Stripes 87, a 12-meter boat that was built identically to the US 42 and 46 boats.

“The big thing at the time was the winged keel,” Dollinger said. “That was the whole secret by the Australians in the previous race, and that’s what gave them that advantage. [The US 46] was built in 1986 and was peak technology back then, and it’s still pretty good now.”

[caption id="attachment_67783" align="alignnone" width="800"] The crew of Breakwater Yacht Club sailors aboard US 46.[/caption]

Breakwater’s Chris Brodie was at the helm of US 46 and had as his crew Geoff Briggs, Toby Logue, Joan Butler, Joe Frizzle, Michael Hayes, Marty and Michael Knab, Larry and Charlotte Kane and Allie Clarke. Brodie captains the Jess Sea out of the Sag Harbor Yacht Club and is the tactician on Big Boat, a regular in Breakwater’s Wednesday Night Sailing Series owned by Bud Rogers.

“It was great, it felt quite nostalgic,” Brodie, a native of New Zealand, said later. “I felt privileged to be on it.”

Brodie thought the regular crew of the US 46, including Dollinger, would do most of the sailing, but as it turned out “they did nothing, which was really quite neat,” Brody said, adding that the grounding in the channel off Breakwater happened while other members of the crew were given a chance to captain the boat.

“We were aware of the draft of the boat,” Brodie said. “We were near the edge of the channel and obviously it comes out a bit more than we thought. And with that kind of draft you have to be really attentive. Eleven feet becomes 9 feet real quickly.”

All the boats, including those in the regular series — won that night by Caminos and captain Donald Filippeli — retired back to Breakwater for a party thrown by the crew of Gossip. After failing to round the “D” buoy, US 46 retired and sailed alongside its sister boat back to the harbor without incident.

“We won the most important race,” Brodie said with a laugh. “Back to the bar.”

[caption id="attachment_67784" align="alignnone" width="800"] The party back at Breakwater.[/caption]