by Dennis R » Fri Jul 04, 2014 12:35 am
Hi, my name is Dennis Ryan and I have some information about the Mini America's Cup. My wife and I were the race directors for 2 of the 3 Mini Cups that were held in Newport, RI. I believe the original mini-cup event was held in Washington, DC and was won by Buddy Black. The cup series was the brainchild of Rich Palmer who did a lot of PR work for the Hobby Industries of America which was one of the sponsors. We were the local AMYA club (#51, Narragansett Bay Model Yachting Association) and that is how we got involved. A small committee of members worked with Rich and the HIA to set up and run the events. As most club members wanted to participate in the event, our committee was rather small. Our first race in Newport was in 1977.
It has been a long time but I do remember it was an awful lot of fun punctuated by an awful lot of work. The planning for the first event took over a year. We had meetings with the state, City of Newport, New York Yacht Club and numerous others.
Racing was divided into 2 groups, US skippers and foreign challengers. The US skippers were from up and down the east coast, with a good number from the Virginia area. Our foreign challengers over the years were Max Lewis and Neil Bennell from Australia and John Cleve from England, Dr George Wilkins of Canada, Hironobu Sugihara of Japan. Racing was a series of round-robin match races narrowing the skippers down to 1 from each group.
The full size 12's would occasionally make fly-bys through our race course causing a stir among the competitors and the spectators. It had been estimated that over the course of the Newport mini's approximately 20,000 spectators watched the events. The races themselves were held at Ft. Adams at the mouth of Newport harbor. The initial races were held at the Mule Barn section of the fort, which had a beach, but the latter years it was moved out to the very point of the fort, not far from the main channel into the harbor. At this location there was a lot more interaction with 12 meters and I have a picture of 2 12's circling some of our EC-12's. At the end of one day's racing at the 1980 mini cup, the crew from US 12 Freedom (defender and winner of the 1980 America's Cup) came to our site and tried their hand with our EC-12's. After 2 minutes it looked like they had been sailing EC-12's for years.
The head of our protest committee was a gentleman named Leeds Mitchell, Jr. Leeds was an expert in racing rules having served on the rules and protest committees for the America's Cup. He was Rhode Island resident and he came to us through the New York Yacht Club of which he was a long time member. I remember telling him that this would probably be a lot different than what he was used to but, he said - sailboats are sailboats and racing is racing. He had a great time.
The results - 1977 - Bob Harris winner over Neil Bennell
1980 - John Cleve (K1 - England) I and another club member had the pleasure of throwing John into Newport harbor after his win, much to the delight of his wife Susan and his son Barnaby, although Barnaby did look a little confused to be honest, but he did laugh. A good time was had by all and John was a very gracious winner.
1983 - Buddy Black
I do have quite a few photos that I will try to scan and post a few (need to find them first). That is about it, it was a lot of fun. If I think of anything else I will post it.
By the way, I was EC12 Secretary for a few years.
Thank you.
Last edited by
Dennis R on Fri Jul 04, 2014 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.