America’s Cup 40th anniversary: Australia II skipper John Bertrand reveals trade secrets behind win

Disbelief. Joy. Excitement. Pride. Sheer elation. You name it, the emotions of the bleary-eyed nation were anyone, or perhaps a heady brew of all of the above that morning. It was when that sleek-looking white yacht with the strange keel — the exact nature of which was at that time still secret — crossed the finish line in that race in 1983. But for John Bertrand — skipper of Australia II when it claimed the America’s Cup — the emotion of that moment was a little different. “From my perspective, it was relief that at last now we could go home, we had got the job done,” Bertrand told The West Australian as he reflected on the looming 40th-anniversary celebrations. “And then, an incredible sense of excitement, and contentment follows after that,” he said. “Contentment is a wonderful thing.” But while the focus of the looming 40th anniversary celebration of the cup win will inevitably be on that moment, it was the culmination of not days, weeks or even months of trying. It was years. And years. The cup had been held by America’s New York Yacht club for 132 years. Trying to win it was the sporting equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. And yet there were plenty willing to try. For WA businessman Alan Bond it became an obsession perhaps, and he bankrolled three challenges leading into 1983. This time there was a wealth of experience to draw on, and in Bertrand, a skipper of impeccable credentials. He was a yachting world champion and Olympic medallist and he was on his fourth tilt at the cup, having had his first go way back in 1970, even before Bond. But before taking on the US defenders, they had to beat off challenges from other nations also wanting to sail against the Americans. Australia II dominated the Challenger series. Bertrand remembered how the team had improved that summer in Newport, Rhode Island. “During the summer the performance of our team and our boat increased by making many many modifications to the equipment and the way we sailed the boat, to the point it became clear that we were very competitive,” Bertrand said. And yet there was still an unknown. How good was the American boat, Liberty, under the command of its shrewd skipper Dennis Conner, and backed by big US money and expertise, including from the aerospace industry. Undaunted, Bertrand said the mindset of the Australians was one of determination, aided by their mantra “one day at a time” — which is now adopted and recited often in modern sport. “We were in the business of endeavouring to duplicate our best performance each day, which is a difficult call, a big one because in the sport of yacht racing there is no such thing as a perfect race,” he said. “It’s a highly technical sport, you have the technology of the sails, the boat, the crew, and the tactics and then you are competing with mother nature, wind, as well as competing against the opposition. “So there are lots and lots of variables involved, and it’s a matter of who makes least mistakes in many ways, recovering and learning from those mistakes as well, from day to day.” And of course, there was the revolutionary keel, designed by Ben Lexcen. “He was the Leonardo da Vinci of this country,” Bertrand said. “He would think outside the box.” “Out of ten ideas two could be extremely important, eight could be a failure, but that’s all about progress as well,” Bertrand said. Yet the team initially had some uncertainty about whether to fight for the cup with Australia II or a more conventional boat, Challenge 12, which they also had under consideration. But eventually, they settled on Australia II and its winged keel. “We put a lot of effort into endeavouring to understand the performance of both boats. Was it a punt? It was a calculated choice,” Bertrand said. “As it turns out it was the right choice.” “The reason being in hindsight we had more potential with the Australia II configuration than we had with Challenge 12.” What Australia II gave them was extra tacking ability. And yet even then the well-drilled US crew managed to negate some of that advantage by adapting their tactics and changing the characteristics of their boat, Bertrand said. But the keel, which the Australians kept secret under the waterline until Bond revealed it after the victory, also brought another element to the table — a boost in the mind games that are synonymous with the America’s Cup. “The psychology of having the keel covered, as it turns out was an important factor, in terms of the Americans’ great concern at what they were racing against, and that became a bigger deal than we thought at the time,” Bertrand said. Nevertheless after a summer of supreme mostly incident-free racing in the challenger series, gear breakages dogged the Australians in the early part of the seven-race final and they found themselves down 3-1 to Conner. “I felt extremely frustrated that we got ourselves in that position, we had gear failure, people say it was unlucky no it wasn’t unlucky it was our lack of maintenance programme,” Bertrand said. “And also the Americans were sailing extremely well so it wasn’t just gear failure they were very competitive.” “We felt extremely uncomfortable being 3-1 down, we felt we were better than that. “Now could we turn it around from 3-1 down to win the America’s Cup, most people would think it was 1000-1 against which probably it was, they only had to win one race and we had to win three on the trot. “The way we approached it, I approached it was getting rid of the consequences of winning or losing out of our minds, out of our dialogue, and just getting on with each day as it came. “And if we executed correctly on the next day then they would invite us back to race the following day. “We got rid of all the newspapers and television sets, stopped reading about any of our performances. “We went into our cocoon, being oblivious to the rest of the world.” And execute it they did. It was not until it was nearly all over in the final race that Bertrand allowed himself to think they could win the whole thing. It was “about 100m from the finishing line when if the mast fell down we could push the boat across the line,” he said. Bertrand said it was a triumph of focus and professionalism, trust and vision. “The values of trust which come from integrity and honesty, transparency, respect for each other, having fun . . . and then having a vision, over the horizon, what’s this game going to look like by the year 2000 was part of our mantra,” Bertrand said. Clearly Bertrand himself as leader was crucial, bringing aboard sports psychology and visualisation which was ahead of its time. “I’d never speak about ‘I’, used to talk about ‘we’,” he said. “It’s about endeavouring to get one plus one equals three. “You empower good people with the right focus and the right values to create magic. “It’s now part of, I’m proud to say, Australian history, not only in the world of sport.” And his overriding emotion, looking back? “A great sense of pride, satisfaction, that we could bring this success to our country.”