Of Bucks and Boats

Oceans of cash and high-security dementia have transfigured what was once a relatively low-key nautical spree between sporting amateurs into a rare and often ludicrous frenzy, the kind that inevitably results when corporate sponsors jump into bed with jingo loonies, tiny-brained yacht-club yahoos and seagoing rock stars—the generic label for 12-meter skippers and other key crew members.

In the pre-1983 history of the America's Cup, the foreigners took their boats to Newport, Rhode Island, got soundly thrashed by the U.S. defender and went home to sulk, leaving the cup safe on its pedestal at the New York Yacht Club, where it had resided for many happy, smug decades. Australia put an end to that in 1983, leading the U.S. yachting establishment to conclude that the end of the world was imminent and setting off a recovery campaign that has little precedent in any sport. Now the stigma of losing carries with it the enormous thrill of spending millions upon millions of dollars in the world's biggest floating crap game. It's been estimated that the current challenge will produce a write-off of as much as $300,000,000, regardless of the result.

In 1977, when Ted Turner won with Courageous, each of the three American boats entering the final selection trials had spent about half a million dollars. This time, $10,000,000 is a typical budget, and estimates for the heaviest hitters—the New York and San Diego yacht clubs—range from $15,000,000 to $25,000,000.

The traditional motives for cup racing were honor, prestige and sailing supremacy; and while these high-minded concepts still have their place, other and more pragmatic forces have come into play. For openers, a billion dollars, which is the estimated revenue windfall for the host country. We want the cup back because it's got our name on it—so there. The Italians want it because they'd like to make their part of the Mediterranean the world's premier yacht-racing venue, and the Canadians crave it because it's about the only chance they have of forcing everyone else to race in their frigid waters. New Zealanders want it because, as the Australians' closest cousins, they'll do anything to annoy them, while the French want it because they're French and because they have ambitions for their stretch of the Mediterranean. As for the Brits, who made the cup and lost it in 1851 to the black wooden schooner America, they'd like to get their hands on it because, dash it all, it was theirs to begin with; a joke's a joke, lads, fair enough, but gosh. And all six challenger nations and the Australian defenders have spent money as fast as they could raise it, to the immeasurable benefit of the Australian tourist industry and everyone remotely concerned with designing, building and equipping 12-meter yachts.

The boats themselves are comparatively worthless after the race. A modern 12-meter is too lightly built for heavy-weather sailing over long distances; it has no engine, no living accommodations and no crew amenities except for a plastic bucket for "used food." A 12-meter yacht is mainly a high-speed warehouse for sails. You can pick one up for a few hundred thou once the racing's over.

Precise figures for America's Cup expenses are impossible to determine. They're as jealously guarded as the secrets of 12-meter keel configurations, and nobody ever knows what the final tab will be, because equipment replacements during the race can easily run to six figures before the meter stops. Moreover, some equipment and services are donated by sponsors and manufacturers in exchange for promotional tie-ins. On the basis of information from a current challenger, however—one whose budget was slightly less than the magic $10,000,000 figure—we've compiled the cash breakdown that follows. Anyone curious to know why it costs so much to campaign a 12-meter in the America's Cup need look no further.

Our figures (which are composites that reflect only minimal outlays in some cases, with allowances for spares in certain categories) are culled from numerous 12-meter authorities, including sailmakers, builders, sailors, equipment suppliers and research experts, as well as one of the world's foremost naval architects. In the best tradition of the 12-meter game, everyone asked for anonymity.

Design, Research and Development

Generally the biggest single expense in 12-meter racing, our $2,500,000 figure may be tripled or quadrupled for the New York and San Diego syndicates, which produced more designs and more boats than any other challenger. More than half of the total goes for tank testing (at $5000 a day) and model building ($6000 to $15,000 apiece). The big spenders will tank-test for as long as 18 months, working in the tank for one or two weeks at a time, evaluating the results and then returning for another series. The tanks themselves are normally used for naval and commercial-ship development and are located in California, New Jersey, Holland and England. The Hydronautic Ship Model Basin at Tracor Hydronautics in Laurel, Maryland, is about 415 feet long, 25 feet wide and 13 feet deep; it has a full-time tank staff of about 15. The models are about 20 feet long and are usually of modular construction to allow the designer to experiment with hull shapes without having to build a complete model each time. The designer works on a range of boats for testing, design and wind-tunnel testing of keels, research in hull, keel and spar materials, construction methods, rigging and sail development. He also collects data from existing 12-meters. For this, he and his team receive about 20 percent of the total R-and-D cost.

Insurance

For offices, docks, boats, equipment, cars, housing and an Australian base team of about 50 personnel, including 11-man racing crew.

Crew

Most syndicates remain coy on the subject of crew pay, though one defender estimates that ten percent of its $10,000,000 budget goes for wages. Some rock stars are in the six-figure bracket, with promises of fat bonuses for winning, plus incentive packages of real estate, cars, boats. As an Australian sponsor said in the summer of 1986, "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." There is no connection between this statement and the fact that mastmen and grinders—the strongest men on racing boats—are known as gorillas.

It's the grinders who provide the raw muscle that makes a 12-meter fly. Whenever the boat tacks (changes direction), their job is to winch in the headsail so that it picks up the wind from the new course without losing a foot of headway. It's like working a high-speed treadmill, except that it's done by hand on a steeply canted moving surface that's often half submerged. When they're not grinding, they're pumping water out of the hull or helping with sail changes; and when they're not doing that, they're getting ready for the next tack. Like everyone else who works the deck, they're also busy trying not to be washed overboard.

What kind of people are grinders? When a Fremantle pub staged an arm-wrestling contest before the present series started, one of the New Zealanders broke the arm of an Australian rival.

Practice Program

Three years for some syndicates, this includes costs of consultants, shipping boat to practice site, gear repair and replacements, crew accommodation, allowances, clothing, food and travel.

Trial Horses and Tenders

Secondhand 12-meters against which the main boat is tested and powerboats used for towing, supply, rescue and mobile-communications missions.

Transportation

The cost of shipping the boat from the home country to Australia; also includes the cost of a crane for lifting the boat on and off its trailer.

Administration

Office staff and rental, travel, equipment, consultants.

Fund Raising

This includes everything from setting up public photo sessions (give a buck, get a signed picture of crew with boat) to organizing $10,000-a-plate send-off parties and buying media space to enlist support.

Australian Campaign

This covers all costs while a challenger is down under, including administration, boat and matériel transportation within Australia, crew housing, food, travel, dock space, workshops, small-boat operations and an average daily sailing cost of about $1000 per boat.

The Future

To quote journalist Mike Royko: "If rich people want to spend their time and money proving which of them can sail a yacht fastest, that's OK. But I wish they'd stop trying to convince the rest of us that what they do is a matter of national pride and a potential boon to our economy."

A lot of people might agree. But the cup is one of the few remaining international contests—the hardest testing ground of any sport. That counts for something at a time when it seems to have been proved beyond any reasonable doubt that mankind is governed by frightened half-wits. While it's unlikely that an American baseball or football team will ever meet a Soviet team, the possibility can't be ruled out that one day, the Russians will challenge for the America's Cup. Or the Libyans will. Like us, they've got their share of sailors; and, like us, they'd be facing the same problems—wind and water. And, like a lot of people, they'd probably rather be sailing.

Standing rigging:

Once made of rope, then of wire, it was and is intended to hold up the mast. Modern 12s use rods made of nickel-cobalt alloy. Riggers—once a breed of seagoing steeple jacks who worked with B.F.H.s (big effing hammers)—now talk about the "modulus elasticity factor" and "the elliptical transverse." Aerospace engineering and aerofoil techniques, in particular, play a major role in rod-rigging construction; and while the rigging still helps support the mast, it serves mainly as a sophisticated tuning mechanism. With two sets of spares: $150,000.

Sails: Canvas is history. Dacron's on the way out. Nylon and Mylar are widely used for lighter sails, but the newest sailcloth (for mainsails and headsails) is Kevlar, which is used for tire cord and bulletproof vests. Attrition is horrific—and expensive; figure about $23,000 for a main, $6500 for a spinnaker, as much as $16,500 for a genoa. A low-budget operation will have a minimum inventory of 50 sails; one with deeper pockets carries 400 or more. Allowing for original research—computer time and design—and for spares, sail budget totals $1,500,000.

Spars: The mast, the spinnaker pole and the mainsail boom. The mast s aluminum, while the rest are carbon fiber, which weighs less. To further reduce weight aloft, some syndicates replaced stainless-steel fittings on the mast with costly titanium, achieving up to a 40 percent weightsaving. Because masts may now be built more lightly than in the 1983 cup series, breakages and failures have been frequent, straining both crews and budgets. Spars and their spares: $250,000.

Hardware: Just about every fixture on and below decks is made of expensive metal: stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, nickel-cobalt and other big-ticket platings and alloys. Hardware ranges from the tiniest nut, bolt and washer to the steering system and rudder. The two major winch-grinding systems (for sail control) cost about $50,000 and $20,000, respectively. The six-part hydraulic installation that tunes the rig costs about $50,000. In all: $200,000.

Hull: Except for the fiberglass New Zealand boats, all 12s in the current series have aluminum hulls and decks. The most critical stage in hull development after design and construction is the fairing process—to provide optimum performance value. For this, putty is caked liberally onto the hull and then faired—or sanded by hand—dozens and dozens of times. Under the 12-meter rule, aluminum hulls can be no thicker than 5mm above the water line, 6.5mm below, with reinforcement layers where necessary. New Zealand's fiberglass hulls were in excess of 30mm thick. A U.S. protest against the Kiwi hulls failed from lack of support. Figure the hull (including keel) between $400,000 and $550,000.

Running rigging: A 12 needs close to 3000 feet of line (rope, to landlubbers). Sheets are the lines that control sails; halyards (from haul and yard) hoist sails up the mast; afterguys control spinnaker poles. Most of the line on a 12 is Kevlar; some lines are all Kevlar, some are wire spliced to Kevlar. The wire costs about $1.50 a foot; Kevlar, two dollars a foot. Some syndicates replace all of it daily. In the 1983 cup series, a sailmaker boasted that the four boats he supplied used enough line to reach from Newport to Los Angeles. Running rigging for three full sets: $20,000.

Electronics: Nautical nerds have become the new gurus of 12-meter-racing exotica. Complex on-board computers integrate information from conventional electronic instruments (wind velocity, boat speed, course, etc.) and other data to provide a "wind history" that is transmitted ashore for instant analysis, then stored for future tactical guidance. Other gimmicks: a device that measures distance to start line and a laser instrument still in development that reads the wind direction upcourse by analyzing movement of dust particles. A California syndicate that rented a Navy computer spent more computer hours on hull design than the Navy spent designing nuclear submarines. Cost: anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000.

Keel: The Australians introduced the revolutionary winged keel, which took the America's Cup in 1983. All modern 12s now have winged-keel shapes of varying configurations, some more radical than others; all use good old-fashioned lead to provide the needed weight. The advantages of winged keels over conventional shapes are threefold: They provide greater stability, reduce drag and improve the boat's performance when sailing close to the wind. Five of the six American syndicates in the current challenge had their keels built by a California firm that by early 1986 had received orders for 20 winged keels, each of which required about 400 man-hours to build. Cost: an average of $40,000.