As Terry McLaughlin sailed past a spectator boat last Sunday with a handy 3-0 lead in the Canada's Cup match race, he looked down from the helm of his boat, Defiant, and cautioned overconfident viewers, "Don't worry it's not always this boring."
True to his prediction, there was no runaway. U.S. challenger Robert Hughes aboard Heartbreaker came back to push the series almost to the limit before McLaughlin won the best-of-13 series 7-5 on choppy Lake Ontario yesterday.
Officials from the host Royal Canadian Yacht Club ferried champagne out to the boats in celebration, as Defiant staged a successful defence of the 107-year-old title. Canada has won five of the past seven Canada's Cup competitions, but the United States still has historic bragging rights, with 11 wins to Canada's eight since 1896.
This year's battle of sleek Farr40 boats pitted McLaughlin's strategy against Hughes's raw speed.
"I tip my hat to Bob, he sailed well," said McLaughlin, a former world champion and the 1984 Olympic silver medalist in the Flying Dutchman class.
"On average, we were a little slower than Heartbreaker when the breeze came up. From our point of view . . . we won 11 of the 12 starts in the regatta. If we hadn't done that, it would have been over in their favour. We needed to start ahead and hang on to have a chance at winning. Even at that, they could catch us and pass us, as they did on the second leeward leg this morning. And once they got ahead, they could pull out."
Defiant came in with a 6-4 lead in races yesterday morning, but Heartbreaker, always running faster downwind, made up a 13-second disadvantage from the start and won going away by 45 seconds.
With a chance to tie the series in the afternoon, Hughes made one of his best starts, only a half-boat length behind McLaughlin.
They staged a tacking duel upwind, but Heartbreaker had a problem getting the spinnaker to fill rounding the first turn, and Defiant sailed to a 12-second advantage. As wind speed picked up to 16 to 18 knots, the advantage grew to 29 seconds by the third mark. Heartbreaker spent the rest of the race catching up, but was still 10 seconds astern at the end.
"This has been my main goal for two years," said McLaughlin, who is a partner in the Defiant project with Paul Phelan. The syndicate built around Defiant spent about $350,000 for the boat and its twin, Reliant, which served as a sparring partner and, if necessary, parts donor. It cost about $300,000 in expenses and travel. There is no prize money in the Canada's Cup.
"But there's prestige for the club and for Canada in this," McLaughlin said. The boat will probably have a few more sails this fall, then be taken apart and stored for another challenge.
"But I don't want to think about another Canada's Cup for a while. I hope the next challenge is in three years, not two."
McLaughlin's crew had tactician Andy Horton, strategist Geoff Moore, pit man John Millen, main man Dave Scott, trimmers Allan Megarry and Phil Gow, mast man Rob Gale and bowman Ian Smith, who was relieved by Milo Rossi when Smith suffered a back injury.