Admiral’s Cup- Australia holds on firmly to proud history and the cup

by Tracey Johnstone and Peter Shipway on 25 Nov 2010 Australia was the last nation to win the famed Admiral’s Cup. As many of the Admiral’s Cup sailors retire from the ocean racing rail, grinder, mast and helm, a group of those crusty sailors recently came together to celebrate the proud history of Australia’s 18 challenges for the Admiral’s Cup.

As they travelled down ocean racing’s memory lane the sailors reminisced about the challenges, hardships and fun of competing in what was for 46 years the premier international ocean racing regatta.

Facing them at the head of the function room was the proudly displayed Admiral’s Cup Trophy. Since winning it in 2003 and with no further Admiral’s Cup held, Australia’s 2003 team leader, Bob Oatley, has remained the custodian of the magnificent prize.

Led by Peter Shipway, who competed in eight Admiral’s Cups, owners and members of many of the 53 crews that made up Australian teams reminisced in typical Aussie fashion.

In 1957 the Royal Ocean Racing Club, including Sir Myles Wyatt, then Admiral of the RORC, provided a challenge cup to be raced for by national teams. The event was to include two short races on the Solent during Cowes Week, a channel race and the Fastnet Race.

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Australia debuted in 1965. On the team’s organising committee was Norman Rydge. 'The origin of Australia’s challenge for the Admiral’s Cup began with a conversation I had with Alan Payne about 49 years ago. I said to Alan that I wanted him to design for me a boat, about 39 maybe 40 feet, made of wood. I wanted it to rate well under the RORC rule, which was the rule in use here and in England, and also the CCA rule in use in America. Alan said to me ‘why both rules?’ and I said it was my intention to do the Hobart, Fastnet and Bermuda Races, and after the Bermuda Race, do the Trans-Atlantic Race. He said no Australian boat had done that before and as far as he knew, no yacht in the world had done this. I said to Alan, it will be done.

'We entered the 1963 Hobart Race and at the end of that I was having a discussion with Tryge Halvorsen and Bill Psaltis, telling them of my plans to go to the Fastnet Race the following year. They said’ why don’t we do the Admiral’s Cup ?’.I said I had never heard it. They explained to me that it was the ocean racing championship of the world at that time. So we thought we would do some investigation into that and see if was possible for Australia to enter. Tryge, myself and Bill formed a small sub-committee and finally we induced the club (Cruising Yacht Club of Australia) to challenge on behalf of Australia.

'Having done that we decided our sub-committee should be headed by a person of some eminence in the community. We believed this would give an imperator to what we were trying to achieve. Various names came to mind. One of them was Sir James Kirby who was a friend of my family and a director of Qantas, which was handy. We approached Sir James and he said yes. That gave a great impetus and a great start to our first challenge.

'As soon as we decided to challenge four problems immediately came up. The first was what boats to send, the second was how to the get the boats there, the third was when we get there what are we going to do and the fourth, money.

'In respect of the first one, we held some trials. The trialling was completely subjective and it was a point score business. Finally Tryge Halvorsen with Freya, Ron Swanson with Camille of Seaforth and Gordon Ingate with Caprice of Huon formed the team. My own boat turned out to be too small from a rating point of view to have the right to contest to be part of the team. But because we had recently won the Ocean Racing point score we went along in that capacity to Cowes', Ryde said.

Caprice’s owner, Gordon Ingate, with his usual Aussie sense of humour, remembers well the English welcome in 1965 for the Australian team. 'When we went over to England in 1965 we were presented with the comments ‘nice of you colonials to come and make up the numbers, but why did you bring these old boats ?’. We were old fashioned. Caprice was 13 years old. Tryge had won the Hobart race three times with Freya and there was Camille with a flappy leech, but the boat was going fast.

'We went out for the first start which was for the round the island race for the Queen Victoria trophy. As we were approaching the start line and I said to Bill Fisk, my navigator, ‘Bill, I think we are five minutes too early’. Gordon, he said, keep going, I think we are on time. The rest of the fleet, 151 boats, were five minutes behind us after we had started. It took them a long time to catch us.

'When we got back we were told we were trying too hard. When the English go sailing they went out for a jolly, they went out to enjoy themselves, have a gin and tonic. When we put this thing out, called a jockey pole, they said ‘what the hell is that ?’. We went extremely well. The press could not believe that we colonials, with our old boats, were doing so well. That is the way the Admiral’s Cup started for Australia. It was also the way Australian international ocean racing started. We took it up with avengance and we did well.'

Caprice was unbeatable inshore winning all three races. Eight teams challenged and Australia finished an impressive second.

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In 1967 Australia mounted its second challenge. Bob Crichton-Brown had Balandra, built by Muirs in Hobart. Ted Kauffman had Mercedes III and Caprice of Huon was back, this time under skipper Gordon Reynolds. The team swept all before them. They were the top three scoring boats and Mercedes was the top scoring boat of the whole Admiral’s Cup in the nine nation fleet. Australia had won the Admiral’s Cup.

Balandra crew member, Peter Hemery, remembered vividly the challenges of getting the Australian boats to the start line back in 1967 'We didn’t look like getting the boats there because there was the Suez crises, the war between Israel and Egypt. The boats were half way up the Red Sea and all hell broke loose in the canal so the boats were recalled. They went to Cape Town and then were trans-shipped. We owe a great debt to Ted Kauffman who flew straight over there to help organise the re-shipping to get them to Southampton on time. When we got to Southampton, everyone was down on the dock waiting for something to happen when we ran into something called Southampton Wharfie on Strike.

'The Southampton Wharfie on Strike with their hats, tweed jackets, collar and tie, sat down and said ‘what do you guys want ?’. We said we wanted to help them get the boats off the ship. No way they said.

'With all this delay, one of the issues the skippers had was what to do with 25 to 30 young blokes hanging around in Cowes for three weeks waiting for their boats. So our skipper, Bob Crichton-Brown had the thought of chartering a boat, putting us reluctantly on board and taking us out on test sails at night across the English Channel. We were not impressed. The rest of the team were having a ball in Cowes while we were allegedly earning our keep.'

Mercedes III returned in 1969 along with newcomers, Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin and Ted Kaufman’s Koomooloo. Against eleven nations Australia was back into second place overall.

The Cup in 1971 was historic. Arthur Byrne’s Salacia II, Ragamuffin and Koomooloo made up the team. There were 11 teams and Australia placed third. The Cup highlight was Syd Fischer and his Ragamuffin crew’s victory in the Fastnet Race. Yachting journalist Bob Fisher described Ragamuffin’s run to Bishop Rock as 'one of the legends of this great race' with them encountering everything from dead calm to gale force winds throughout the 600 nautical mile race.

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On sharing his memory of that extraordinary year Syd Fischer said, 'Cowes is a rather strange place to go sailing. It is difficult. A lousy place to stay with crook accommodation and lousy food. But the racing was very competitive. We went there with determination to win and we pulled it off. The main thing was that ’71 was the first year that the IOR measurement came in. The original Ragamuffin was built to the English measurement RORC rule. When we got there they said ‘what are bringing that bloody old boat here for ?’. Anyhow, we kept sailing it and came out of it pretty well. We had a very good crew and they sailed the boat as hard as they could.

'One of things I remember was this English guy who I went to dinner with about two or three years ago. He said ‘you know, I will never forget the story about the Ragamuffin crew. One of the English crew yelled out to you, what class are you ? The reply from Ragamuffin was ‘lower, bloody middle class!’ That was typical of the Australians. We listened to all the bull the Poms put on us when we got there. How good their boats were, what they were going to do with us. So we just said, okay, maybe we shouldn’t have come. But then we would go out and beat the ass out of them the next day. Then they asked what we did and we said, we just got lucky. That was the attitude of the Aussies.'

In 1973 Australia was back again, this time with Ragamuffin for the third time and another lot of newcomers, Gary Bogard’s Gingko and Alan Bond’s Apollo II. Germany took out the honours this year with Australia in second in a fleet of 16 nations.

It was then the turn of the 'the Klu Klux Klan' as Peter Shipway described. In 1975 Peter Kurts’s Love & War, Ted Kaufman’s Mercedes IV and John Kahlbetzer’s Bumblebee III made up the team. It was a dismal series for Australia in 1975. Big heavy boats, a light weather series, 19 nations and Australia had their worst ever performance at ninth place.

'Ted was over there early with a crew of Fraser Johnston and Lawson Abbott to get the boat ready. I was over there early as well. Fraser said to me one Friday, as he was flossing his teeth, ‘Lawson and I are going up to London to visit some friends for the weekend. If you see Ted just tell him that we are around the corner,, or something’. So Saturday morning arrives and Ted comes down to the boat. ‘Hey mate. Have ya seen Fraser or Lawson ?’ I said, yes, they were just here Ted, but they have gone up to the chandlery. ‘Oh okay, they’ll be back in minute’ Ted said as he dragged on his unfiltered Craven A. Midday Ted was back. ‘Hey mate, have you seen Fraser or Lawson ?’ I said, they were just here looking for you. This went on the whole bloody weekend till Monday when Ted said ‘where the bloody hell are these blokes ?’ sucking on another Craven A. They finally got back on Monday afternoon. I don’t think Ted was any the wiser,' Shipway joked.

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In 1977 Syd Fischer was back with a new Ragamuffin, Keith Farfor’s with Superstar, the first boat out of Victoria to represent Australia at the Admiral’s Cup and Jim Hardy with Runaway which was beautifully described as going to windward like a beach ball. 'It went sideways faster than it went forward. It was a bloody long series,' Shipway said. It was another year of 19 nations. Australia finished seventh.

Then came 1979. Triumph for Australia with a great victory, but tragedy in the Fastnet Race with the loss of life.

The Australian team was made up of Peter Cantwell’s Police Car, Graeme Lambert’s Impetuous and again Syd Fischer with Ragamuffin. Protests, damaged boats and windy conditions were encountered throughout the inshore races. But it wasn’t until the team’s gutsy performance in the Fastnet Race that the Australians moved up the ladder to take a humbling first place overall in the fleet of 19 nations.

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Alan Bond was back in 1981 with Apollo 5. With him was another West Australian, Peter Briggs with Hitchhiker and Syd Fischer with Ragamuffin. Hitchhiker was the star of the Australian trials that year, but she bombed out in Cowes disqualified in the first two races. Great Britain was the victor in the 16 team fleet, Australia finished in eighth.

Briggs came back in 1983 with his Hitchhiker. Joining him was Dennis O’Neil with Bondi Tram and Peter Kurts, after a long absence, with Once More Dear Friends. The selection trials were dominated by a boat called Shockwave chartered by Neville Crichton. A strategic decision by the selectors left Shockwave out of the team. They ended up in the New Zealand team. There were 15 nations and Australia finished fourth.

In 1985 Victorian Lou Abrahams won his first selection in an Australian team with Challenge III. Peter Kurts was back again, this time with Drake’s Prayer. The third team member was a little boat from Tasmania, unheralded and unsuspected to get in the team; it was Don Calvert’s Intrigue.[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]

'We did actually build three good boats down there (Tasmania); the Caprice, the Balandra and the Intrigue. When I asked Tony Castro to design Intrigue he wanted to build out of all this exotic stuff. I said we haven’t got the expertise to do that in Tasmania, but we do know how to build wooden boats and we also grow trees. One of the better known boat builders down there at the time said if God meant us to make boats out of fibreglass he would have made fibreglass trees. Anyhow, we built the Intrigue with timbers; king billy and celery top pine, huon pine and a little Canadian spruce. It was an honour to represent Australia in the Admiral’s Cup,' Calvert said.

Germany won the Cup for the second time and out of the 18 nations Australia was fourth.

In 1987 Alan Bond returned to the Admiral’s Cup, this time as a sponsor. He was flying high at the time and said to the team management 'bugger it, we will sponsor the whole team'. The team boats were called Swan Premium I (Sagacious V, Gary Appleby), Swan Premium II (Ultimate Challenge, Lou Abrahams) and Swan Premium III (Madeline’s Daughter, Peter Kurts). This was the year of the B-max crew. Tracey Johnstone, remembers the team wearing a most unusual uniform on the water. 'We had organised the Australian Wool Corporation to sponsor the team uniform which included an AFL footy team type vest of black, red and yellow, the corporate colours of Swan Premium. For the B-max members of the team, it was quite a sight to see these horizontal strip vests spreading out from the shoulders all the way down to the waist. Not the best look.

'I also remember watching the team, kitted out in their formal team gear, on the hill outside the Royal Yacht Squadron waiting to meet the Price of Wales. For a bunch of amazingly confident Aussie sailors, faced by royalty, they were surprisingly nervous,' Johnstone said.

The team in 1989 was a mix of talent from ocean racing, America’s Cup and Olympic fame. Chris Dickson, Russell Coutts joined Colin Beashel in the team of Peter Kurts’s Madeline’s Daughter, Lawson Klopper’s True Blue and Ron Elliott’s Joint Venture III. This was also the year that saw the first and only female member of an Australian Admiral’s Cup Team with Tracey Johnstone travelling with the team to England as team management.

Great Britain won again that year in the fleet of 14 nations. Australia finished fifth.

But the Admiral’s Cup was dying a slow death. In 1991 there were only eight nations. Australia was represented by Max Ryan’s Cyclone, Keith Jacobs’s Bimblegumbie and Chas Jacobsen with his chartered yacht, Shardana. Australia finished eighth.

In 1993 Australia returned to do battle with six other teams. John Calvert-Jones’s Great News II, Peter Kurts’s chartered Ninja and a new Ragamuffin for Syd Fischer made up the team. Australia came second by a quarter of a point behind Germany after Great News was dismasted in the Irish Sea in the Fastnet Race.

Sadly in 1995 Australia was unable to put a team together. The format for the cup had also changed with entries specifically selected to comply with Big Boat, ILC 40 and Mumm 36 class rules.

Then in 1997 Australia made it back with only seven nations competing. Another change in racing format saw Australia fielded a team of Ragamuffin in the IMS Class, John Calvert-Jones with G’Net in the ILC40 Class and Steve Kulmar with Sea in the Mumm 36 Class. Australia placed fourth.

Backing up in 1999 for another tilt at the coveted trophy nine nations competed in a frustrating series. Australia was represented by Bob Steele’s Quest in the IMS Class, Ron Jones’s Sledgehammer in the Sydney 40 Class and , the CYCA Atara Syndicate led by Noel Drennan racing the Mumm 36 Atara.

This was the year that the Fastnet Race was removed from the program, the cup was held outside of Cowes Week and the Wolf Rock Race became the principal offshore race. Australia was seventh.

Then in 2001 it was another sad year in the history of the Admiral’s Cup with the event being cancelled by the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

The last time the Admiral’s Cup was held was in 2003. The format had again changed with club teams challenging for the cup and teams made up of two boats. Australia’s Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club team of Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats and Colin O’Neil’s Aftershock were victorious for the third and final time.

'So you could say that in 2010 Australia has held the Admiral’s Cup longer than any other country because it is still bloody well here and they are not going to get it back. The Admiral’s Cup Notice of Race says ‘the Admiral’s Cup will be returned at the next series’. There hasn’t been one for seven years so we have still got it,' Shipway proudly announced in wrapping up his history of the Australia’s participation in the Admiral’s Cup.

This could change of course if Gordon Ingate got his way. 'I was over in Cowes this season and the English said, ‘Ingate, what do we have to do to get the Admiral’s Cup back ?'. I said what you are going to have to do is come out to Australia with three boats, with the format of the Admiral’s Cup and win it back.'

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