America's Cup

views updated May 23 2018

AMERICA'S CUP

AMERICA'S CUP, yachting's preeminent competitive event, is a quadrennial race dating back to 1851, when the America defeated the Aurora and a fleet of other British vessels in a race around the Isle of Wight. Britain, then the world's premier naval power, was stunned by the defeat. The cup itself was donated to the New York Yacht Club, where it remained for the next 132 years, as American defenders defeated no fewer than twenty-five challenges, five of them by Irish tea tycoon Sir Thomas Lipton.

In 1983, Alan Bond's Australia II of the Royal Perth Yacht Club, using a revolutionary winged keel, defeated the American defender Dennis Conner in a narrow 4–3 victory. Conner regained the cup for the San Diego Yacht


Club four years later. The cup then entered a bitter phase when Michael Fay of New Zealand challenged the Americans to an unusual rematch just one year later. Conner won using a sixty-foot catamaran, a design that Fay unsuccessfully challenged in court. Bill Koch's America3 successfully defended the cup in 1992 using the new standard boat size. In 1995, Peter Blake's Team New Zealand soundly defeated Dennis Conner's Young America and brought the cup to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. In 1999, for the first time in the cup's history, no American boat was present in the final, when Team New Zealand beat Italy's Prada. While popular mostly with the well-to-do, the America's Cup race grew into one of the major international competitions, attracting challengers from eight different countries in the 1999 competition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conner, Dennis, and Michael Levitt. The America's Cup: The History of Sailing's Greatest Competition in the Twentieth Century. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Lester, Gary, and Richard Sleeman. The America's Cup, 1851–1987: Sailing for Supremacy. Sydney, Australia: Lester-Townsend, 1986.

Kathleen B.Culver

Philippe R.Girard

See alsoSailing and Yacht Racing ; Sports .

About this article

Americas Cup

All Sources -
Updated Aug 08 2016 About encyclopedia.com content Print Topic