PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY IMAGES
http://www.boatinternational.com | June 2017say you can’t do.” No one thought he could pull it off.
“They said I was a nutty chemist from Kansas,
a buffoon, somewhat of an idiot.” Koch was a chemist
from Kansas but he certainly wasn’t a buffoon or an
idiot. He believed that science could win the America’s
Cup and he had the resources to prove it.
“My doctorate degree is in fluid dynamics so
I understood science extremely well. I had also
discovered what makes a boat go fast and what makes
a boat go slow. I’d set up a research programme at MIT
to do exactly that. We looked at it for five years and we
came up with the fastest boat in the world.
“When I decided to compete for the Cup, everyone
thought that what you needed to design a boat was
a great naval architect. I said ‘bullshit’. Naval architects
are good for ideas but they are not scientists.”
Koch knew he was on to something, especially
when Dennis Conner [the yachtsman who has won the
trophy four times] came calling with a request. “All the
America’s Cup guys came to me when they saw how
fast our boat was and they all wanted the technology,
so I asked them what was in it for me. Dennis Conner
said I could have breakfast with the crew! Everyone
wanted my technology but they didn’t want me. Why
would I finance someone else’s ego trip? Better to
finance my own, be on the boat, and do what I want. So
that’s what I did.”
Koch calculated his odds and decided he had a very
good chance of winning. Still, the criticism came. “I got
tremendous abuse in the press for thinking I could sail
against the great Dennis Conner and his ilk. All I cared
about was doing it my way, and winning.”
Doing it his way meant having no superstars, just
team players, in the America³ line-up. “The essence of
winning is teamwork. That model allowed me to beat
some of the best sailors in the world. I didn’t want
any superstars. We rated everyone in three categories:
attitude, teamwork and ability. They had to be tens in
attitude and teamwork. I had three guys who were tensin sailing but twos or threes in the other categories.
I cut them all. People asked me all the time why I was
on the boat. I told them I was on the boat for three
reasons. One: I’m not that bad a sailor, not the best, not
the worst, but I can sail. Two: if I’m putting up all the
money I’ll do what I damn well please. Three: if I’m on
the boat I can see what’s going on. There’s only one ego,
the ego of the boat.”
Koch pushed the boundaries in all manner of ways
in his pursuit of glory. “A lot of people make
assumptions. I find it’s always good to challenge your
assumptions, which is why I did so much testing. We
also understood the science, which no one else did, and
we were the ultimate in spying. We hired divers and we
picked up people’s garbage. We did everything we could
within the rules and the law but we pushed it to the
edge. When we picked up garbage, we found where all
the keels were being made. We had a guy who needed
a new keel working for us so we sent him up there. He
went out into the backyard and took photos, he even
got his ruler out. We tested those designs in the tank.”
What Koch and Co came up with in America³ was
a winning formula as well as a winning boat. That must
have felt pretty special, crossing the finish line and
lifting the America’s Cup, I suggest. “I’ll tell you what I
told the reporter who asked the same question straight
after we’d won. I said: ‘Honey child, it’s like having a
thousand orgasms.’ Now I wish I’d saved a bunch.”
If it felt that good, why not go again in 1995? “I didn’t
defend it myself because I had nowhere to go but
sideways. I asked myself what I could do for the sport,
and how I could be contrarian. So I came up with the
idea of a women’s team. We fulfilled the goal of making
the sport more popular and we showed that women can
compete directly with men.”
The women’s team on board Mighty Mary won the
first round of the four-month contest, defeating all the
male teams and, although they did not go on to win the
Cup, they certainly won over the critics.
So what does the contrarian, scientist and
billionaire think of the new look America’s Cup boats,
the foiling catamarans that will race in Bermuda’s
Great Sound this month? “There’s a Spanish saying:
‘The only beast at the bullfight is the crowd.’ These
types of boats play to the audience and I think that’s
exciting for the viewers. From a commercial point of
view the foiling multihull is the way to go.” Koch says
he will watch the America’s Cup with interest to see
which way it goes, that he will miss it while he is
watching it, but then afterwards he will thank God he’s
not involved any more.
As I’m leaving I ask if he’d like to visit the Land
Rover BAR base in Bermuda before the serious stuff
starts, perhaps hitch a ride on the raceboat during
a practice session, and his eyes light up. That kid from
Kansas watching the wind puffs across the bluestems
is daydreaming once more. BSkipper Bill Koch,
right, and his
helmsman, the
1972 Olympic
gold medallist
Buddy Melges,
lift the America’s
Cup in front of
their America^3
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