The America's Cup is one of the biggest races in sport, and Jerry Kirby '80 is still in the thick of the chase.
When a sleek, black New York Yacht Club schooner surprised the world in 1851 by beating all comers in a fleet of the fastest sailing vessels ever assembled, the name on the transom was America.
Thus was born the America's Cup, now the oldest and one of the most hotly-contested trophies in sport — and an event that continues to intrigue Jerry Kirby '80.
Kirby, of Newport, R.I., has participated in boat races all over the world, but he says that nothing quite matches the spectacle of the America's Cup. Now forty-four and the self-described “world's oldest bowman,” Kirby spent last fall in New Zealand as a crew member on Young America, one of eleven challengers fighting it out to see who would race Team New Zealand for the America's Cup.
Young America had a rough challenge series, losing in the third round robin, and in February, when boats from Italy and New Zealand began racing in the Hauraki Gulf, it was the first time in 149 years that there was no American boat contesting for the America's Cup.
The change in the nationalities of the competitors is the most recent in a series of changes that has enveloped the entire America's Cup experience.
For 132 years, the cup was in the proud possession of the New York Yacht Club. Whatever the competition — whether J-Class sloops or smaller 12-meter boats — the New York Yacht Club kept the cup in New York. And whatever the era, the nature of the competition remained the same — irregular summertime campaigns raced primarily by volunteers and supported by tycoons.
The winning boat's country of origin changed in 1983, when Australia II became the first foreign challenger in twenty-five tries to defeat an American boat. And the nature of the competition changed in 1980, when American Dennis Connor decided that the best way to win the cup was to mount multiple-boat campaigns that would spend the years between defenses on testing, training, and refining.
Connor's approach — quickly adopted by others — meant that more money was needed, and the competition for the America's Cup became a thing of corporate sponsors, rich syndicate patrons, and professional racers. At this year's America's Cup, the sails and hulls of the boats sported corporate logos, and nearly all of the sailors were professionals. Kirby, in fact, says he was one of five men in the cup event who does something other than race boats (in his case, he owns Kirby Perkins Construction Co.).
All of this may come as a surprise to Americans, for whom racing at this level is akin to World Cup soccer — an event that pops up on television every once in a while and then disappears. Like soccer, however, the sport is big elsewhere in the world. A top skipper can make as much as $2 million a year, crew members are wooed by syndicates wanting them to sign long-term contracts (just like a professional athlete in the United States), and so many yachts crowded into New Zealand this year that race organizers had to put a limit on the number of spectator boats. The America's Cup finals were broadcast on ESPN2 in the United States; other television networks that held rights to the event included TVNZ in New Zealand, RAI in Italy, TFI in France, TVE in Spain, Channel 8 in Sweden, Network 7 in Australia, and DENTSU/DirecTV and Wowow in Japan.
Jerry Kirby got into this world as a youngster in Newport, R.I. Despite the location, he did not come from a sailing family; in fact, his family didn't even own a boat. But in 1970, when he was fourteen, the America's Cup races came to Newport, and Kirby began to hang out on the dock of the Intrepid — the American boat that was to win the cup that year.
“I hung out so much, in facts, that the Intrepid crew hired me on as a boat boy,” he says.
Kirby was hooked, so much so that he interrupted his years at Union to sail across the Atlantic to take part in the European race circuit. After graduating, he was a full-time professional for a few years (when he was married in 1986, he and his wife lived temporarily in Long Beach, Calif., where he was training, and then moved to Perth, Australia, for the America's Cup challenge) before he entered the business world.
One of the requirements for racing at Kirby's level — in addition to a love of competition and great technical skills — is a willingness to be a nomad. Once a month or so Kirby will fly from Rhode Island to a competition — a race from Cuba to Baltimore, for example. For longer races, such as the America's Cup, his family accompanies him; his children attended school in New Zealand last fall while Dad competed. And when he has been part of the Whitbread Around the World race, his family has come to several continents to cheer him on.
Kirby laughs when asked about his “glamorous” life.
“Last fall, the crew would wake up at 5 a.m. and be in the gym shortly afterwards for a couple of hours with the weights or doing aerobic exercise. Then it was time to work on the boat or to race. That pace went on seven days a week. In fact, during the four months we were there, I had three days off.”
Kirby has had more than his share of adventure in his America's Cup years.
Back in 1992 he was aboard America3 when another member of the crew got his foot snagged in a jib sheet and was dragged overboard. Kirby rescued the crewman by hoisting him back on board. In the most recent challenge round, Young America crashed off a wave and split amidships during a race. Kirby and another crew member stayed on board to stabilize the craft with air bags and portable bilge pumps. The crews on the rescue boats urged them to get off, but Kirby recalls thinking, “We felt we could save some equipment and, if we worked fast enough, we could save the boat. We did.”
Such efforts might not seem worth it for the old family rowboat, but at the America's Cup level we're talking millions of dollars. The New York Yacht Club's challenge had a budget of $40 million, an amount comparable to that spent by the other ten challengers (Prada, the Italian boat that raced New Zealand for the cup, cost $60 million). Young America's corporate sponsors included such immediately-recognizable names as Yahoo, Gateway, and Air New Zealand as well as more specialized companies such as Yale Cordage, manufacturers of technologically-advanced braided rope for yachting applications.
Technology plays a big part in racing at this level, and design teams put their models through all kinds of tests to try to eke out extra speed. Kirby says the designs have become so refined, however, that the differences in speed are not as marked as they once were. The bigger part in any boat's success, he says, is the crew work, especially at a place like New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf, where conditions change constantly.
“When boats go out for the start, all the radios and phones and high-tech stuff get turned off,” he says. “All you have are the instruments to measure the wind, just the way it was 100 years ago. The fact is, no equipment in the world can tell you what's going to happen on the water. You have to rely on experience.”
Obviously, crew chemistry is important, a fact kept in mind by the syndicates that assemble crews for races. Kirby has raced with some other crewmen for ten to fifteen years. “You develop the chemistry by being on the water, and it takes time,” he says. “Once you're into a race, you depend on humans not to make mistakes. And the best way to achieve that is to work so closely you know what each other is going to do.”
How long can Kirby keep racing? Like any athlete in his forties, he's well aware of time passing. “You know your time is up when the phone stops ringing,” he says. “But that hasn't happened yet. In fact, I'm talking with a couple of syndicates about the around the world race next year.”
So, if you're lucky enough to come across a world-class race, try to get a look at the fellow up front; it might be “the world's oldest bowman.”