By SUZANNE McFADDEN
When Bill Trenkle was frantically treading water off the coast of California, watching his America's Cup yacht gurgle to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, maybe he was wondering whether he had taken a wrong turn in his life 24 years before.
As a young cadet, dressed in a crisp naval uniform with its buttons polished and glinting, 20-year-old Trenkle had came to a fork in his career path. He had been offered two jobs: one designing nuclear submarines, the other working for Dennis Conner on his 1980 America's Cup defence.
The young sailing fanatic fresh out of maritime college knew his future lay at the bottom of the ocean, but he wanted a taste of life on top of the waves, in the contest for the world's oldest sporting trophy. Then he would go back to the life of a submariner.
Well, it never panned out like that. In a few days' time, Bill Trenkle will see his eighth tour of duty in the America's Cup, as Conner's right-hand man, running Stars & Stripes.
So it must have seemed strange when, in July this year, Stars & Stripes' brand new boat, USA-77, started acting suspiciously like a submarine. The rudder fell out and plunged to the ocean floor. Only the top of the boat's mast was left sticking above the waves, like a periscope.
In truth, Trenkle didn't have time to consider the irony of it all. His heart was aching, and his eyes were straining to spot the heads of all his crewmates bobbing between waves.
In the minutes before the boat suddenly sank, taking in water where the rudder once was, two sailors, bowmen Robbie Myles and Greg Gendell, had been below deck inflating airbags.
"That was the scariest moment of my life, trying to find all the guys," Trenkle says. "I had to make two head-counts before we found everyone."
Trenkle and Stars & Stripes helmsman Ken Read took control of the situation in the water, and for the next eight hours it was Trenkle and shore manager Mick Harvey who organised the salvage of the US$10 million ($21.2 million) boat.
Meanwhile, back on land, a concerned Dennis Conner was at work over a hot stove.
"He knew everyone was wet and cold so he cooked up a big pot of chilli to warm everyone up," Trenkle says. "It was 10.30 at night. But that's Dennis. He cares so much about everyone on the team."
You see, no matter what you think about "Dirty Den" and his shenanigans - accusing New Zealand of cheating in 1987, calling Kiwi designer Bruce Farr a loser in 1988 - Trenkle sees a man who is warm and humorous, and who gave him the opportunity of a lifetime.
"My kids adore him. He takes my seven-year-old son fishing. They go 50 miles offshore just to catch one fish," Trenkle laughs.
Trenkle, born on July 4, 1958, can clearly remember the evening he met Conner. He was halfway through his degree in marine engineering at the prestigious State University of New York's Maritime College, otherwise known as Fort Schuyler.
After a boyhood in New York's Long Island Sound, with much fishing, waterskiing, diving and sailing, he had become serious about sailboats at Fort Schuyler, where the school's yachting team was ranked No 1 in the country.
The school was also behind fundraising initiatives for Conner's early America's Cup campaigns. But when Conner came to visit, it wasn't only to collect cash but to check out potential sailing talent.
"Fort Schuyler was a great resource of clean-cut, 'yes-sir, no-sir' guys who would do what they were told," Trenkle recalls. "Dennis was putting together a two-boat campaign for the 1980 cup defence and he knew he was going to need extra crew.
"He came to the school and I was amazed by this guy. We were there, cadets in button-down uniforms, standing to attention, and here's Dennis making jokes with the admiral, who was this deadly serious guy. Dennis is telling the admiral to give us boys some drinks. We were trying so hard not to laugh.
"Straight away, though, he was drilling us, picking our brains to see if we knew anything about the rules of sailing - even though he was only recruiting guys for the real grunt jobs."
Although six of his schoolmates joined the Stars & Stripes campaign in Newport there and then, Trenkle decided to wait until he graduated before joining the camp. With his marine engineering training, he was not just there to grind winches - his first job on site was to repair the bilge pump system on raceboat Freedom. Immediately he proved himself valuable to the team.
Trenkle also worked on the weather boats, but there was nothing like the hi-tech communications systems used today.
"I had to build my own weather kit from stuff I bought at Woolworths - a packet of balloons and some helium," he says.
Stars & Stripes used marine radio's public band to transmit weather information to the boat, so they invented a secret code. "If there was a wind shift I would say 'tuna on the hook'," he says. "Then you'd get these old fishermen calling back saying, 'Where's the tuna? There hasn't been tuna in these parts for years'."
By the end of that 1980 campaign, another victorious one for Conner and the United States, it was Trenkle who was hooked. He has been part of every Stars & Stripes team since.
Conner realised he had caught a good one - a young man with a special talent which might make the difference between winning and losing - and invited Trenkle to sail in other big boat series with him. He became "protected talent", given job after job so enemy camp recruiters could not steal him.
"I was a little torn, because I wanted to go back and do some work in my real career - I really wanted to work with nuclear submarines," Trenkle says. "But then I was offered jobs on other boat programmes, I ran into Dennis again and suddenly I was involved in the 1983 cup campaign."
Now, in Auckland's wet spring, Conner and Trenkle stand under USA66, as smooth and bare as a newborn baby in her cradle, overlooking the Viaduct Basin.
Conner ribs Trenkle that the boat doesn't look shiny enough - yet she is still one of the most classically beautiful boats in Syndicate Row. It was Conner and Trenkle who hunched over pots of paint late one night before the 1986 campaign and mixed up the gunsmoke blue that became their trademark colour. Then they came up with the present deeper midnight hue.
Trenkle is trying to keep an eye on every corner of the Stars & Stripes base. As director of operations he oversees everything, from design, building and maintenance of the two boats - USA66 and USA77 - and manages the sailing team. He is also a sailor on the race boat, a headsail trimmer.
Conner, the non-sailing skipper, puts almost all his energy into fundraising these days. He trusts Trenkle to make the decisions now.
"I raise the money and he spends it. Just like a good marriage," Conner says, deadpan. "Sure, I could have got someone else to do this job, but they would never have done it as well as Billy. He's been with me long enough that he knows how I would like it done.
"I guess he rose above the pack, and it was a pretty high-level pack. Maybe it's just that he wasn't as bright as the others who got out of here."
Conner recognised Trenkle's leadership talents early and made him a project manager in the 1983 defence. But it is not a time either of them recall fondly - the first time the America's Cup left the United States in 132 years.
This week was the 19th anniversary of that historic defeat, and Trenkle remembers the disappointment clearly.
"It was a really tough campaign. It was heartbreaking to lose that last race to the Australians," he says. "Initially I wasn't ready to jump back in and try to win it back."
In fact, he thought it was time for a career change. The owner of a boat he was managing suggested he become an account executive at his advertising agency in Seattle.
"I went up to see the company and it rained every single day I was there," says Trenkle, who lasted less than a week before he was back sailing again, and eventually back on the payroll at Stars & Stripes.
In 1985, Conner packed up the team and they moved to Hawaii, where for two years on and off they trained in isolation, away from the rest of the challengers preparing on the racetrack off Fremantle.
Conner's preparation paid off. His famous comeback victory in 1987 became America's Cup legend. More important now is the fact that Stars & Stripes have had an almost identical build-up to this Louis Vuitton Cup, with the team training off Long Beach, California, instead of Auckland like the other challengers.
Trenkle talks of the similarities: "This time has been very much like Hawaii - a long, hard grind in isolation from the other teams, everyone very focused, brutally efficient and the weather brilliant. And all of a sudden we turn up, just before the start. We want to keep our secrets to ourselves."
Fremantle was Trenkle's favourite America's Cup - obviously - because Stars & Stripes won, reclaiming the silverware. "I couldn't imagine a more magical time," he says.
The team returned home to an audience at the White House with Ronald Reagan and a tickertape parade down Fifth Avenue. Conner had etched those events into his sailors' minds well before they happened.
"Dennis has his own form of sports psychology," remembers Trenkle. "When we were training in Hawaii we had to picture ourselves in the parade and in the White House. We thought about those moments when we were racing in Fremantle - they were there all the time. He taught us that if you dream these things and believe in them they do happen."
Since the one-sided victory of Conner's catamaran over Sir Michael Fay's big boat in 1988, Team Dennis Conner has not won an America's Cup. Recent campaigns have been short of money, but not short on skill. In 2000 they almost made the Louis Vuitton Cup finals with a one-boat effort.
Now, with two boats, Trenkle has a good feeling about this campaign. "It's the first time since 1987 I feel we have a shot at this. We haven't had the tools since then to do it right."
They are seen as the American team, the only US syndicate who did not hire foreign talent, and they boast names like Tom Whidden, Peter Isler and Mike Toppa who have been with Conner virtually since the start of his Cup career.
Of course, it has not been all plain sailing. They were not the first syndicate out of the blocks, and just when it all seemed to be going so well, the rudder fell out of USA77 and she sank in 18m of ocean.
The boat is now in Auckland and under repair. A new bow, made in the United States, was delayed in transit so USA77 will not be ready to race in the first round robin starting on Tuesday.
It is not only Trenkle who has been absorbed by Team Dennis Conner. He says his wife Crystal is a huge fan, and their walls are covered with the latest crayon drawings of the Stars & Stripes boats, created by sons Tyler and Justin, who also refuse to take off their pint-sized Stars & Stripes T-shirts.
Although there are whispers this could be the last America's Cup campaign for Stars & Stripes, Trenkle shakes his head doubtfully.
Conner himself says, "It won't be over as long as I'm still breathing". It just wouldn't be the same without the man. And, it seems, it wouldn't be the same without Trenkle at his side.
Bill Trenkle, Stars & Stripes (US)
Team role: director of operations
Crew role: headsail trimmer
Date of birth: July 4, 1958
Family: wife Crystal, sons Tyler (7) and Justin (4)
Cup career:
1980 Stars & Stripes back-up sailor
1983 Stars & Stripes, assistant project manager, back-up mastman
1987 Stars & Stripes, co-manager of operations, trimmer
1988 Stars & Stripes, director of operations, trimmer
1992 Stars & Stripes, director of operations, trimmer
1995 Stars & Stripes, director of operations, trimmer
2000 Stars & Stripes, director of operations, trimmer
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