Dennis Conner is an American Hero
Dennis Conner
Dennis Conner was born to a fisherman who worked out of San Diego Harbor, living throughout his childhood in a house approximately 175 yds from the San Diego Yacht Club. He was exposed to sailing, and racing, at an exceptionally young age. It is no surprise that given his early exposure he was able to develop the kills, and leadership qualities necessary to carry a Cup team to victory, his time spent in business contributing significantly as well. He also swept the Star Worlds, took Bronze in the 1976 Olympics, and holds a total of 28 world championships to his name. Looking back, his ominous reputation preceding him, he nevertheless stands out as a transformational figure in the history of American sailing, whose playbook deserves careful study in determining the future of… America’s place in the America’s Cup.
Dennis Conner can be credited in near singular fashion with revitalizing the institutions of American sailing in the post war era. With the demise of the J-Class and the breakout of the Second World War, professional sailing teams disappeared entirely. Not until Conner’s surge to prominence in the late 1970’s was such a thing widely seen again, with Conner insisting on year round training, including daily exercise regimen, near constant sailing ‒ all totalling over 4000 hours in preparation for 1980 ‒ and of course an reinforced funding apparatus for the defense of the Cup. This having been compelled in part by the clear belligerence of our “friends” in the South Pacific towards claiming it.
With Australia II, and the Perth Royal Yacht Club’s eventual victory in 1983, Conner suffered the humiliation of helming the end of NYYC’s 132 year stranglehold on the trophy. In hindsight it could be easy to imagine that his 1987 return to glory was likely given the warlike desire to reclaim the trophy for the US, but there were in fact many challenges faced in doing so. With the Cup out of NYYC’s hands, the legal practices used to bludgeon challengers to defeat before the commencement of races, were out of the picture, spurring excitement among many possible challengers to get involved in the following contest. Conner formed Sail America Foundation, to source private funding for the ensuing challenge, which eventually landed with his hometown San Diego Yacht Club. A period of intense development and training ensued. He greatly elevated the capabilities of his challenging team, and brought new designers into the fold to field a three boat campaign which would be competitive against the Ben Lexcen designed Australia III.
1987 would prove to be a potent moment of American sporting glory. Conner swept the match 4-0, afterwards parading Stars and Stripes 87 about the marina with a giant American flag flown from her backstay.
In the Robber Baron era of our own time, the Cup has again found itself to be a playground of the uber-wealthy, with teams’ spending in excess of $100 million on multiple occasions in the past 15 years. Too often, these sums are drafted from one, or a small handful of rich investors, namely the defense and successive loss of Larry Ellison’s Oracle Team USA. We would like to see a departure from this current era, and a restoration of the organized donor groups once commonplace in previous America’s Cup events.
It has now been more than 8 years since the pummeling defeat of Oracle Team USA by the Kiwis in San Francisco, and it is time for a serious challenge to be mounted once again. American Magic, the NYYC challenge attempt for the 2024 Cup, was, to phrase it lightly, a grave disappointment for a Yacht Club once so stridently committed to maintaining their hold on the Cup, that no rule of sportsmanship was unworthy of breaking. American Magic has recently opted out of presenting a challenge in the 2027 America’s Cup, making it the first ever event to not feature an American boat, with rumors awry that NYYC has quietly terminated its relationship with the team and will be looking elsewhere for their next attempt. Perhaps this will prove incorrect, or maybe they will wind up at another club, it is yet to be seen. If true, the editors find this to be a troubling development, yet one unsurprising given the past hubris of the club in question.
The technological circus now surrounding the Cup, is of equal concern. We are now watching boats taken out of action, and prompted often to retirement entirely, because of minute equipment failures. The boats fielded today have become unnecessarily complex, and fragile, and the framework of design requirements has evidently become more concerned with television ratings and social media clips, than with serious, tactically challenging sailing, as those of us still racing on traditional displacement monohulls are indelibly aware. What gains have been made in speed and visual flash, have come at the complete expense of what racing sailboats is supposed to be, a chess match. Gone are the days of delicate, high pressure tacking duels, attention to crew ballast and movement about the deck, sail choice, or split second decision making capable of yielding substantial time losses. Much like high level competitive target shooting, it seems the soul of our sport at the flagship level has, over time, been eaten away at for the sake of popular entertainment, and in the end, money.
This too, the editors find to be an unacceptable development, and urge the greater racing institutions of the world to meet, and come to agreement on a return to form. We know few sailors awed by men riding bicycles in boats more closely resembling F35’s than what we would like to be known as a Yacht. Nor do we find the endless speckling of sponsorships on such boats to be remotely becoming of the sport. In the search of expanded audiences, the once loyal base of lifelong sailors have been left behind, and so an event is born with no tangible relevance to the real, everyday world of racing at a club level. And still we wonder why Yacht Clubs across the country are in demise (we are aware of the many other contributing factors to this phenomenon, and have equally harsh criticisms which will be revealed at another time).
Back to Dennis Conner. The bullish and cocky behavior of “Big Bad Dennis”, while polarizing at the time, is missed by us greatly. In the infamous press conference following his victory in 1988, he responded to the (again) belligerent Kiwis, “I’m sailing a cat… somebody else is sailing a dog.” What the Cup lacked in speed and visual excitement in his time, was filled in by the memorable characters who took part in it. We are now on the opposite end of the spectrum, as the quest for optical flash has accelerated, the event has only become increasingly more boring. The 1987 Cup was a great moment in American history, one of defiance and resolve to reclaim what is, by name and origin, ours. It should again become a mark of national pride and unity, but it is yet to be seen if our country is capable of rallying around anything in these times.