Victory at Sea
Where was I? Oh yes, in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, where when one treads on a toe in the crowded pubs and streets it probably belongs to a multimillionaire, perhaps even a billionaire. There has never been such a spectacular and historic display of tycoonery as the owners who have descended on the island for the week's 150th anniversary of the greatest yachting event in history, the America's Cup. Gianni Agnelli, Bill Koch, Robert Miller, John McCaw, Giuseppe Gazzoni, Thomas Perkins, King of Spain Juan Carlos de Borbon, the Aga Khan, Prince Henrik of Denmark, Giorgio Armani, you name it: if it sails, it's here.
As I told you last week, I joined Gianni Agnelli's magnificent Stealth after she had won the Fastnet race. This is the icon of yachting races, the Everest for sailors, a pinnacle of aspiration that has become a trial of strength and a battle of wits during its 600-mile length. No one sleeps on Stealth because there are no beds, no bunks, no hammocks; in fact there's nothing below but sails and a single loo for emergencies. Instead, and unlike the professional crew, I stayed on Leander, lent to Gianni by her owner Sir Donald Gosling and among the largest and definitely the most luxurious superyachts around.
On Saturday morning, while breakfasting with the last tycoon, Gianni informed me that I would be crewing on Stealth for the next day's opening race. Like German humor, crewing on a modern-day high-tech sailer is no laughing matter. One mistake and the race is lost. Worse, people are often killed or drowned under heavy weather conditions. To describe my feelings as extremely excited would be the grossest understatement of my life.
Sunday dawned sunny and very windy. We were 24 on board, Gianni watching us from up close on Stealth's tender. With 30 minutes to go the water-ballasted Stealth was ready. Kenny Read, in my opinion the greatest helmsman alive, had his navigator and tactician out with field glasses studying the waters. With 10 minutes we began to tack and jibe for position. When two minutes were announced everyone was in his place and the die was cast. The start of a race of this kind, with four different legs, upwind and downwind, is the equivalent of a Formula 1 car race, but without the pole positions. As the gun went off Kenny had us literally one meter behind the line and we flew off first. (Kenny was cool, cool, cool under pressure; when a big British racer next to us tried to cross, he held his line, and they backed off with inches to go.) On the first tack I tried to pull so hard on the rope I heard a snap in my shoulder, but felt absolutely no pain. We then stayed on a starboard tack for about 10 minutes and we could see the rest of the fleet falling behind. After about 15 more tacks we were up the Solent and around the buoy of the Needles, and up went our spinnaker for our downwind run. Morning Glory, crewed by the winning New Zealand America's Cup crew, was second, and I heard Kenny say, "They'll be on us in 10 minutes," Glory being faster than us downwind.
But it was not to be. Morning Glory put up her oversized spinnaker in a desperate attempt to catch us, and it ripped as soon as it went up. She tried another, but to no avail. We finished the third and fourth legs and crossed the line first by 20 minutes. Two boats went aground, tens of boats were abandoned, a few were demasted by the winds and our most formidable rival, the superfast 145-footer Mari-Cha III, owned by Bob Miller, lost her sails while we whisked by her.
Tuesday was the big one, the race to end all races where I was concerned, once around the Isle of Wight like the original race won by America in 1851. We were 200 at the start, and Mari-Cha III was our main concern. Miller, as nice a man as one can find anywhere nowadays, had suggested to me a mano-a-mano when I had last seen him in London. But Mari-Cha is 50 feet bigger than the 92-foot Stealth, and held the transatlantic record in 1998, a year after her launch. I did not pass the message along to Gianni.
With the gun, Kenny as usual had us out first, and took a port tack right away while everyone else was going to the right. Tom the tactician, a New Yorker, had spotted something 199 others had not. We quickly pulled away and four hours and 50 miles later we were at the Needle, needing only a starboard tack and a spinnaker run downwind to the finish.
And that's when it hit me. I have represented my country in three sports, and carried the Greek flag entering the stadium in two of them, but never had I felt as proud as when the marshals' boats came all round us and the powerboats and superyachts came from behind and began blowing their horns. On land the people were cheering and waving, and we sailed along at 20 knots toward the final gun. At my age-I had my 65th birthday last week-it is easy to become emotional, but, thank God for my goggles, nobody saw me shed a tear thinking of my old man, a great sailor, and how proud he would have been to see me on such a winning boat. Kenny saw me and asked if I wanted to bring her in. I declined, and it was all over but the cheering. It is something they can never take away from Gianni, or Kenny, or even Taki.