42 Breeze Magazine Right: A close-up of the new format recording the date and venue, the challenging and defending teams and yachts clubs and the result. Far right: The team responsible for looking after the Cup, Cooper Hopman, Richard Wingfield and security man Norm Newton are reunited with the amended trophy.
Clearing space to record more Cup results on the Auld Mug By Ivor Wilkins Over its 170-year history, the America’s Cup trophy has accumulated its own share of stories and dramas, quite separate from the long-running and ongoing saga of the fierce competitions waged in its quest. New Zealand’s stewardship of the famous icon has introduced a number of changes in its architecture, the most recent of which came after this year’s successful defence in Auckland. Since the Cup was first contested in 1851 tradition has seen successive match results recorded on the outer contours and valleys of the trophy. As the years and contests mounted up, additional tiers had to be added to the base to accommodate the growing ledger of wins and losses. The most recent of these new tiers was introduced after the 2003 Match in Auckland, won by the Swiss Challenger, Alinghi. However, a combination of a larger typeface and much longer contests, meant the new base quickly ran out of real estate. Following Emirates Team New Zealand’s victory in Bermuda, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron initiated some major changes. Working with Garrards, the London jewellers who originally crafted the trophy in 1848, the RNZYS had a new base built to replace the 2003 version. All the engravings recording the 2003, 2007,
2010, 2013 results were redone in a smaller, standardised typeface and the 2017 scores were added. The thinking was that this would create enough space to accommodate two or three more Cup cycles. However, following the 2021 regatta, it was clear a new format would be required. Instead of following the tradition of recording all the races of the Match, it would be more spaceefficient to simply record the overall result. Over the years, Cup regattas have become longer and longer. Following the initial 1851 fleet race at Cowes in the south of England, the format changed to match racing. Early contests were best-of-three, rising to best-offive, then best-of-seven and steadily growing to the marathon best-of-17 contest of 2013 in San Francisco. In Bermuda and Auckland, the format changed again, reducing to best-of-13 (first to win 7). “If we had added the results of all 10 races in the 7-3 ETNZ victory earlier this year, we would have been out of space once again,” explains RNZYS Committee member Richard Wingfield. “We had to come up with a way of futureproofing the Cup without adding more and more base layers. We decided we no longer needed to reflect every race. We could just record the names of the yacht clubs and yachts competing in the final Match and the outcome.”
Instead of building yet another new base, this time Auckland jeweller Dave Worrall polished out the records of the previous five regattas back to 2003 and re-engraved them in the new reduced format, along with the 2021 result. “In this way, if successive Cup holders follow the same template, we will have space for 15 more regattas,” says Wingfield. “That should be good for the next 60 years.” Simply adding more and more bases poses practical and aesthetic problems. The proportions, which currently neatly balance the base tiers and the original 1848 ewer, would begin to lose their symmetry. From a more practical standpoint, the transportation of the Cup would become unwieldy. In its present form, the Cup in its case, fits neatly into the first class lockers of most international airlines. A larger case would start to present serious logistical and security problems in moving the priceless trophy around the world. As the refashioned trophy returned from the jewellers under the watchful attention of security guard Norm Newton, Wingfield and Facilities Manager Cooper Hopman prepared to re-install it to its pre-eminent position at the RNZYS trophy collection. “We are pretty pleased with the outcome,” said Wingfield.
