Dennis Conner

Dennis Conner
Personal information
Nickname(s) Mr. Americas Cup
Nationality United States
Born (1942-09-16) 16 September 1942
San Diego, California
Sailing career
Class(es) Tempest, Star
Medal record
Sailing
Representing  United States
Olympic Games
1976 Montreal Tempest class
World Championships
1971 Puget Sound Star class
1977 Kiel Star class
1978 San Francisco Star class

Dennis Conner (born September 16, 1942) is an American yachtsman, known as "Mr. America's Cup". He is noted for winning the bronze medal at the 1976 Olympics, two Star World Championships, and four wins in the America's Cup.

America's Cup

Conner has won the America's Cup four times, successfully defending the Cup in 1974, 1980, and 1988 and winning as the challenger in 1987. He was the skipper of the first defender to be defeated in the 132 year history of the cup, also ending 132 years of successful defense by the New York Yacht Club with their loss in 1983 to Alan Bond's wing-keeled challenger Australia II 4 races to 3. Following the loss Conner formed his own syndicate, the Sail America Foundation, through which he raised funds to mount a challenge. Representing the San Diego Yacht Club, he embarked upon a three-year campaign, which culminated in his winning the Cup back from Australia in 1987. Said Ben Lexcen, designer of Australia II, following Conner's 1987 win: "...the big thing is, even when we did win, we were using a rifle against a club and Dennis Conner still almost beat us. It's our sunburned minds. We need more Crocodile Dundees down here. We really do."[1]

The Big Boat Challenge and the beginning of multihulls in America's Cup

After taking The Cup back to American soil, this time for the San Diego Yacht Club (SDYC) in 1987, Conner defeated the controversial "Big Boat Challenge" of New Zealand banker Michael Fay.[2] Fay's team challenged with a 90' super-sloop (KZ1). Conner's SDYC responded with a 60' wing-sailed catamaran, US-1, designed by Morrelli, Chance & Hubbart & MacLane in a surprise defense. Fay's challenge and legal case based on the Deed foreshadowed the controversial 33rd America's Cup, whose legal wrangling resulted in the contest being decided in enormous multihulls in February 2010,[3] while returning to the pre-war style of exclusive, billionaire backed campaigns of Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing.

Leadership and management

From 1987 through to 2003, Conner was skipper of the celebrated Stars & Stripes yachts. Within the yachting community, Conner is most famous for fundamentally changing the America's Cup, and racing in general, from an amateur to professional status. These accomplishments led to the nickname "Mister America's Cup".

Before the 1980s, America's Cup competitors were mostly amateurs who took time off to compete. Conner insisted on year round training with a new focus on physical fitness and practice. This change in approach led to a return to professional crews in sailing, which had hardly been seen since the 1930s.

A photo of America's Cup winner Dennis Conner while aboard a replica of the original Cup winner "America" in San Diego in 2010

Funding and setbacks

Perhaps due to the bad media attention surrounding the 1988 catamaran defense, Conner had insufficient funding to mount his signature multiple-boat defense in 1992, which also heralded the debut of the IACC yacht. His USA-11 proved no match to Bill Koch's America3 campaign. USA-11 was built as a test-bed for design ideas that were to be incorporated into the "racing" boat, nicknamed TDC-2. However, TDC-2 was never built. Its ideas were incorporated into his single-boat campaign for 1995, and the yacht Stars & Stripes USA-34. After almost sinking during The Citizen Cup defender trials, USA-34 went on to an improbable come-from-behind win over Mighty Mary, earning the right to defend The Cup against Team New Zealand's Black Magic, NZL-32. Believing Stars & Stripes is no match against the Black Magic, Dennis Conner swapped boats for the Cup matches, taking the helm of Young America against New Zealand's Black Magic NZL–32. But the result was a humiliating defeat for Dennis Conner, losing to Team New Zealand 0–5.

Conner again found difficulty securing funding for the 2000 America's Cup in Auckland, New Zealand. As in 1992 and 1995, he mounted a single-boat campaign centered upon Stars & Stripes USA-55. Conner was eliminated in the quarter final repechage by Craig McCaw's OneWorld Challenge.

Conner was a rare non-billionaire fielding a team to compete in the 2003 America's Cup, held in New Zealand, receiving funding of up to US$40 million from his sponsors. His syndicate, Stars & Stripes, suffered a severe setback before they departed California when one of the two Stars & Stripes boats (USA-77) sank when its rudder post failed during training. Raised from 55 feet of water and eventually repaired, they were unable to recover the valuable testing time lost and they were defeated in the quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

2003 marked Conner's last participation in the America's Cup.

Yachting accomplishments

Honors and activities

Education

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Dave Anderson (May 5, 1988). "Yachting's Crocodile Dundee". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ Rich Roberts (February 12, 2008). "Think this is ugly? You should have seen 1988". Scuttlebutt News.
  3. ↑ "America's Cup Multihull Battle Set For February 2010". The International Sailing Federation. May 14, 2009.
  4. ↑ http://www.ussailing.org/awards/rolex/
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