The Old Man and the Sea

By GRAHAM REID

"Old men have to have challenges otherwise they get soft between the ears," Sir Tom Clark said 15 years ago when he was 67. And true to his word this former captain of industry and longtime patron of yachting has kept himself busy.

Until recently he was a hands-on deer farmer in the Kaipara, and this forthright octogenarian is a trustee and director of Team New Zealand, and longtime mentor to Sir Peter Blake with whom he meets, and sometimes sails, regularly.

"I recognised in [Peter] the traits that are so important in leadership and he recognises in me a guy that's got no energy and is way past it, but has still got the experience."

And Clark has accumulated considerable experience. He has attended every America's Cup since 1945 except 1958 and the ill-starred 88 challenge between NZ and Conner's catamaran ("I wanted nothing to do with that"), backed Ceramco in the 81-82 Whitbread round-the-world race, was chief benefactor for the 83 Admiral's Cup challenge and chaired the trust which organised the successful Lion NZ 1985 Whitbread challenge (all yachts skippered by Blake.)

Clark's involvement lends additional lustre to the current campaign because in the early 70s his sense of adventure, determination, and willingness to go up against the big international guys captured the imagination of the nation.

Sure Clark was monied, but there was still that sense of the little Kiwi battler challenging the best the world had to offer - and often beating them.

For 18 months in the early 70s his Buccaneer - at 22 metres then the biggest plywood construction keeler in the world - competed in 15 ocean races and finished in the top four in most.

Clark was considered a straight talker, as good as his word, and the guy who just went out and did it.

"It's performance that will count, not yakety-yak," he said in 70 when launching Buccaneer and aiming it at the Sydney to Hobart race. It took line honours.

Fiercely competitive in business and boat racing, Clark was 63 years with Crown Lynn Potteries (the family firm, later Ceramco) and stepped down in August 93 at age 77.

His story is the stuff of legend: taken out of Kings College at 14 when the family couldn't afford fees in the Depression, he dug clay for the family firm then called Consolidated Brick and Pipe, became a director in 1942, then managing director.

Clark retired in 84 but remained a director and deputy chairman, was knighted 86, and inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 97 alongside Sir Frank Renouf, Sir James Fletcher and the posthumously honoured Sir John Logan Campbell.

Yet it was his life outside the office which garnered as much interest. He took up motor racing in the 50s as an antidote to the frustrations of business, and saloon cars lead to a Maserati, then a Ferrari Super Squalo in which he nearly killed himself in a crash at Bathurst in 1957. He was in hospital for 6 months and after being discharged raced for another season ("to get my nerve back") then returned to yachting - he'd previously sailed Naiad - which became his passion.

"I'd had engines rattling in my ears for years and years. It was wonderful to get away from them."

He started with a 6 metre keeler, then came Saracen, Infidel, and Buccaneer in 1970 - all designed by John Spencer - in which he tried his hand at ocean racing.

"I decided at that stage that if I was going yachting I was going to do it properly. I wanted a fast boat ... after racing cars I wanted something that would get up and go."

And he did: three Sydney-to-Hobarts, transatlantic races, Cowes, Bermuda ...

Genial if bluntly spoken, married three times and a self-confessed single-minded perfectionist, Clark is an important, behind-the-scenes advisor and Team New Zealand asset.

"Without Sir Tom," says Blake, "we wouldn't have had our first round-the-world race, or the second or third. He's got a great mind and will make sure we stay on the straight and narrow.

"He's a very good businessman and we're just a bunch of yachtsman doing something we're passionate about - but it's as important to him as it is us we've done this thing properly."






"I recognised in [Peter] the traits that are so important in leadership and he recognises in me a guy that's got no energy and is way past it, but has still got the experience."

And Clark has accumulated considerable experience. He has attended every America's Cup since 1945 except 1958 and the ill-starred 88 challenge between NZ and Conner's catamaran ("I wanted nothing to do with that"), backed Ceramco in the 81-82 Whitbread round-the-world race, was chief benefactor for the 83 Admiral's Cup challenge and chaired the trust which organised the successful Lion NZ 1985 Whitbread challenge (all yachts skippered by Blake.)

Clark's involvement lends additional lustre to the current campaign because in the early 70s his sense of adventure, determination, and willingness to go up against the big international guys captured the imagination of the nation.

Sure Clark was monied, but there was still that sense of the little Kiwi battler challenging the best the world had to offer -- and often beating them.

For 18 months in the early 70s his Buccaneer -- at 22 metres then the biggest plywood construction keeler in the world -- competed in 15 ocean races and finished in the top four in most.

Clark was considered a straight talker, as good as his word, and the guy who just went out and did it.

"It's performance that will count, not yakety-yak," he said in 70 when launching Buccaneer and aiming it at the Sydney to Hobart race. It took line honours.

Fiercely competitive in business and boat racing, Clark was 63 years with Crown Lynn Potteries (the family firm, later Ceramco) and stepped down in August 93 at age 77.

His story is the stuff of legend: taken out of Kings College at 14 when the family couldn't afford fees in the Depression, he dug clay for the family firm then called Consolidated Brick and Pipe, became a director in 1942, then managing director.

Clark retired in 84 but remained a director and deputy chairman, was knighted 86, and inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 97 alongside Sir Frank Renouf, Sir James Fletcher and the posthumously honoured Sir John Logan Campbell.

Yet it was his life outside the office which garnered as much interest. He took up motor racing in the 50s as an antidote to the frustrations of business, and saloon cars lead to a Maserati, then a Ferrari Super Squalo in which he nearly killed himself in a crash at Bathurst in 1957. He was in hospital for 6 months and after being discharged raced for another season ("to get my nerve back") then returned to yachting -- he'd previously sailed Naiad -- which became his passion.

"I'd had engines rattling in my ears for years and years. It was wonderful to get away from them."

He started with a 6 metre keeler, then came Saracen, Infidel, and Buccaneer in 1970 -- all designed by John Spencer -- in which he tried his hand at ocean racing.

"I decided at that stage that if I was going yachting I was going to do it properly. I wanted a fast boat ... after racing cars I wanted something that would get up and go."

And he did: three Sydney-to-Hobarts, transatlantic races, Cowes, Bermuda ...

Genial if bluntly spoken, married three times and a self-confessed single-minded perfectionist, Clark is an important, behind-the-scenes advisor and Team New Zealand asset.

"Without Sir Tom," says Blake, "we wouldn't have had our first round-the-world race, or the second or third. He's got a great mind and will make sure we stay on the straight and narrow.

"He's a very good businessman and we're just a bunch of yachtsman doing something we're passionate about -- but it's as important to him as it is us we've done this thing properly."