(^26) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
TELL TALES
Q& A
Alan Sefton, author of Exposed:
The Dark Side of the America’s Cup
Are you expecting Christmas cards
from all your America’s Cup mates?
I take it that you are inferring the
contents of Exposed might strain
relations! I expect cards from the
usual suspects. The factual retelling
of some of the more controversial
episodes in AC history should not
off end anyone. The conclusions might
not sit well with some key players but
I don’t get cards from them anyway!
Were the Cup patrons of yesteryear
any more interested in a ‘friendly
competition amongst nations’ than
their modern-day counterparts?
I think George Schuyler’s ‘friendly
competition between foreign countries’
is an ideal from a diff erent age.
Certainly, today it would be more
accurate to use ‘fair’ to describe the
contests he envisaged. Even the
litigious, two-times challenger, the Earl
of Dunraven, at the very end of the 19th
century, used his auto-biography to,
somewhat sagely, lament: “I am not
sure that I like international contests. In
such matters as yacht-racing, polo,
golf, and so on, I think they tend to
demoralise sport by turning it into a
serious business in which national
prestige is at stake, and to convert
amateurs, playing a game for the
game’s sake, into professional
specialists struggling for their country’s
sake.”
What were the most damaging Cup
scandals from yesteryear?
There is no way to defend the NYYC
subjecting its fi rst challenger, James
Ashbury’s Cambria, in 1870, to the
impossible task of racing 17 of the
club’s top schooners. Nor its actions a
year later when the club agreed to
race one-on-one but insisted on the
right to not choosing its defender
until the morning of each race in the
best-of-seven series. It was that sort
of behaviour that earned the NYYC,
and the Cup, a less than savoury
reputation, but strong infl uences
prevailed, not least those of Deed of
Gift author George Schuyler, and the
NYYC morphed into a defender who
played the game very hard, but
always within the rules and Schuyler’s
intended spirit.
Did you enjoy the Bermuda AC?
For the most of it, I did but, of course,
I was a Kiwi watching his team dish it
out to the enemy. In my view, though,
it wasn’t what the AC is intended to
be and that was refl ected by the lack
of interest around the globe. In terms
of television audiences, NZ, population
4.7 million, on a daily basis and at
5-6am, had larger actual viewing
audiences than the US, population 321
million, at much friendlier viewing times.
How can a sailing nation as successful
as Britain have such a bad Cup record?
Britain has produced some of the
world’s greatest sailors (none greater
than Sir Ben Ainslie) and some of the
most innovative designers and
engineers. But they always fetch up
short when it comes to putting a
team together that will last the long
and corrosive journey of an AC.
SUNDERLAND, TYNE AND WEAR
Nationwide hunt
for the hero of
Camperdown’s fl ag
WORD OF THE MONTH
Cut and run
A shortened version of “cut your cables and run for
safety”, from the days when hempen cables were in
use. Any ship or person fl eeing from sudden danger
may be said to have “cut and run”. FH Burgess, 1961
A nationwide appeal has been launched to fi nd the fl ag that
helped secure one of the Navy’s greatest victories. The fl ag
was nailed to the mast of HMS Venerable by a young
Sunderland sailor during the battle of Camperdown in 1797
- a dangerous and pivotal action that changed the course of
the fi ght. As Sunderland now prepares to host the Tall Ships
Races 2018, it has begun a campaign to bring the fl ag home
to Wearside, in honour of Jack Crawford, the “hero of
Camperdown”. Born in Sunderland, Jack was impressed into
the Navy aged 14, serving aboard the gunship HMS Venerable
under Admiral Duncan. In 1797, Britain was at war with France,
Holland and Spain and, on 11 October, the British and Dutch
Navies clashed off the coast of Norway, near Camperdown.
Venerable was badly damaged and the main mast bearing its
fl ag was felled. As the Admiral of the Fleet’s ship, the fl ag’s
loss could have been interpreted as surrender. Under heavy
fi re, 22-year-old Jack climbed the mast and nailed the colours
to the top, leading to victory for the British. After the battle
Jack was feted as a hero at home and in London. He died in
1831 of cholera and a headstone was erected in 1888 at his
burial site in the churchyard of Sunderland Parish Church. In
1890 a bronze statue of him was erected in Sunderland’s
Mowbray Park and the famous fl ag is
believed to have been
present at its unveiling.
“As far as we know, it
has never been seen
again,” said Michelle
Daurat, project
director for the Tall
Ships Races
Sunderland 2018.
“His heroic actions,
which turned the
tide of war, have
largely been forgotten.
But we want to change that
and I can’t think of a better tribute to
him than to return the colours to
Wearside.”
Anyone with information is asked
to contact 0191 2656111 or email
[email protected]