The America's Cup has been one of the world's greatest sporting contests for more than 150 years. TERRY MADDAFORD looks at its colourful and often controversial history.
Queen Victoria could never have imagined what chaos she was to stir up for centuries when she dipped into royal reserves to buy a 70cm-high solid silver cup for a yacht race.
The One Hundred Guinea Cup created for Queen Vic in 1848 went on the line three years later when the schooner America, representing the New York Yacht Club, challenged 16 English boats from the Royal Yacht Squadron of Cowes.
The race for the solid silver mug was a one-sided romp with the American challenger seeing off Britain's best in the race around the Isle of Wight.
Sure she was to savour a victory by one of her ships, the Queen asked: "Who is first?"
America has won, she was told. "Who was second?" she asked. The reply was a simple, "Your Majesty, there is no second."
Thus the longest-running contest in world sport was born.
Queen Victoria would barely recognise the contest now known as the America's Cup, with its sleek racing machines masquerading as yachts.
Along the way, there has been lots of skulduggery on the high seas as the British continued their relentless pursuit of a trophy they have not laid hands on for more than one and a half centuries.
It has taken them 16 years since they last tested the water to pluck up the courage and find the cash to mount this latest challenge.
America's Cup racing is not everyone's cup of tea, but no one dared try to convince Sir Thomas Lipton.
The English tea merchant challenged five times from 1899 before finally conceding defeat in 1930 when the last of his five boats, Shamrock, one of the massive J-Class yachts (40m long and with masts reaching 50m), lost 4-0 to Enterprise.
Lipton had the misfortune to come up against Charlie Barr, the only skipper to this day to have sailed undefeated through three consecutive America's Cup series.
Barr, a professional sailor, was aboard Columbia in 1899 when the US boat defeated Lipton's first Shamrock and again in 1901 when Columbia beat Shamrock II.
Two years later, it was Barr who guided Reliance to victory over Shamrock III.
In 18 races over his five challenges, Lipton won only two (going down 4-2 to Charles F. Adams and his aptly-named Resolute in 1920).
The English kept trying after the ageing Lipton opted out, but his successor, boat and plane designer T.O.M. Sopwith of Snoopy fame, with his Sopwith Camel, also came up short in 1934 and 1937, when Endeavour I and II were seen off 4-2 and 4-0 by Harold Vanderbilt in Rainbow and Ranger.
Sopwith's first challenge was another acrimonious chapter in Cup lore. After winning the first two races against Rainbow and narrowly losing the third, Sopwith flew a protest flag after the fourth.
The New York Yacht Club threw out the protest on a technicality, moving one scribe to comment: "Britannia rules the waves but America waives the rules."
It took the British another 21 years to find the cash and enthusiasm to mount their next challenge. They need not have bothered.
Briggs Cunningham, sailing Columbia, saw off Graham Mann and Sceptre 4-0 in the first races for the 12-metre class yachts which had replaced the inordinately expensive J-boats.
It was to be the last in a long line of British challenges for the Auld Mug as the minnows from Australia tried their luck.
Bus Mosbacher was the first to face a challenge from Downunder when he took the helm of Weatherly in 1962 and saw off Gretel, the classy Alan Payne-designed, Jock Sturrock-skippered Australian hope, 4-1.
Mosbacher sat out the next challenge as Bob Bavier and Eric Ridder, aboard Constellation, thumped timid British challenger Sovereign 4-0.
But he was back in 1967 at the helm of the Sparkman and Stephens-designed Intrepid to again trade tacks with Sturrock and Dame Pattie, winning 4-0, after another controversy. The Australians, in the second challenge mounted by Sir Frank Packer, were disqualified following a collision.
The New York Yacht Club copped the wrath of Cup supporters, including many Americans, who felt the ruling was unfair. One member of the Australian parliament demanded his country withdraw their American ambassador in protest. Mosbacher went on to win 4-0.
In 1970, multiple challenges were accepted for the first time with Sir James Hardy (on Gretel II) beating Sweden for the right to square off against the Americans.
He lost 4-1 to Intrepid, this time with Bill Ficker at the helm.
While the 1974 defence was variously in the names of Ted Hood and Bavier (and Courageous who won the defenders sail-off with Intrepid), Dennis Conner made his first appearance as helmsman to signal the start of one of the most enduring chapters in America's Cup history. He whipped Alan Bond's Australian entry Southern Cross 4-0.
In 1977, Ted Turner's Courageous mauled Noel Robbins on Australia 4-0 after the Australians had beaten Gretel II, France I and Sweden's Sveridge in the challenger series.
Conner was back in 1980 aboard Freedom in their 4-1 win over Hardy and Australia.
Three years later his name was again back up in lights but for vastly different reasons. Sailing Liberty on behalf of the New York Yacht Club, Conner locked horns with Australian John Bertrand on Australia II - the yacht with the infamous winged keel.
In a cliff-hanger beamed live around the world, Bertrand scored one of the sporting world's greatest triumphs to beat Conner and Liberty 4-3 to send the Cup, bolted to the floor of the New York Yacht Club for 132 years, on its way to Perth.
Four years later, the defence took interest in the Auld Mug to an unprecedented level with 13 challengers, including six from the United States and New Zealand's first lining up in the waters off Fremantle for the right to take on Iain Murray and Kookaburra III.
Conner, still hurting from his fall from grace in 1983 and now representing the San Diego Yacht Club, took Stars and Stripes through the challenger series and into the match proper. He wasted little time in winning 4-0.
Then followed Michael Fay's controversial "big boat challenge" of 1988 in which Conner's Stars and Stripes - an 18.3m catamaran - beat off KZ-1 New Zealand (with David Barnes at the helm), a 36.5m monohull, 2-0 in a series which ended up in a bitter court battle which the Americans won.
By 1992, the rules had been amended and a new design for America's Cup boats had been set.
Italy's Il Moro di Venezia (with American Paul Cayard steering) went down to Bill Koch and Buddy Melges on America3 4-1.
Three years on New Zealand struck gold. After winning a challenger series notable for the sinking of Australian hopes, Team New Zealand's Black Magic, with Russell Coutts at the helm, beat Conner's Young America 5-0 to send the Cup on its way to Auckland.
The rest is history.
After building the best possible base and with the late Sir Peter Blake in command, Coutts and Dean Barker waited while the challengers raced each other, with Italy's Luna Rossa eventually winning through. But the Italians just as ineffective in the final series as Conner had been five years earlier, losing 5-0.
Now the full-on focus is the 2002-2003 series and, among others, the first British challenge in 16 years.
Whether they, or any of the other wannabes, can snap a 10-race winning streak by New Zealand remains the big talking point in a sporting contest which never fails to fascinate. And one which Queen Victoria could be proud of.
America's Cup winners since 1851
Ten stars of America's Cup history
A short history of 'New Zealand's Cup'
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Quest for the Cup: 150 years of yachting excellence
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