Yachts are distinctly different from schooners, sloops and other single-masted sailing vessels. Unlike other sailboats, which reach full maturity within 6 months, Yachts take up to 3 years before they're fully grown. This is because of their mixed heritage. Genetic research has shown that yachts share a lineage with schooners as well as destroyers. While not military, they do have some features associated with warships the most common being a pair serrated fangs in their mouths. There are two distinct types of yachts, each determined by their intended use; pleasure or racing. We will look at each of these.
Pleasure Yachts
Pleasure yachts are a unique breed both physically and genetically. Though they share the schooner heritage with their relatives they also have cruise ship characteristics as well. This cross is unique among ships and it is unknown where it originated though scientists are continuing to search for the missing link. Their genes are considered to be far healthier than their cousins the racing yachts who we will get to in a moment. Pleasure yachts vary in size and intelligence being as silly as a dogboat or as smart as an ocean liner. But they are all extremely loyal. They love being pampered which is why they are a favorite among the rich as they adjust to the material wealth lifestyle very easily. Owners only need to make sure they get enough exercise as pleasure yachts are also inherently lazy and will prefer to lay around over sailing on a cruise. Health problems are limited though yachts with engines can often develop blockages in their bilge systems as they get older.
Racing Yachts
Racing yachts are by far the most common type of yacht. Born and bred exclusively for racing these vessels are brought up and trained for one purpose, winning! Their personalities make it easy to do this. All sailing ships are inherently fast, a necessity for back when they were the prey of many other ships. But racing yachts take this to another level with a shocking level of focus and drive. They put everything they have into their work on and off the racetrack. You won't find a single lazy racing yacht on the course. They have the highest level of intelligence among all single-masted sailboats, able to strategist and out think their opponents to victory. Its as much a game of brains as it is of brawn. Their breeding is the most heavily regulated of any civilian ship and they are considered the "thoroughbreds of the maritime world" according to one researcher. Like thoroughbreds, selective breeding has weeded out much of the diversity, thus making the species genetically weak compared to their pleasure loving cousins. But careful research has prevented any harmful genetic conditions from passing on. Speed of course is a key gene to focus on as it is speed that carries the racers to victory. But endurance and durability are also important. The courses can be long, with many races run over a short time period. Sometimes several races in a single day! So the ability to recover quickly from one race and go on into the next without any trouble along the way, is vital to a racing yacht's success. And in a world where races are becoming more and more competitive and compact throughout the year, these characteristics are more valuable than ever! Just the slightest edge can make all the difference. And it starts in the blood.
Perhaps one of the most successful of the racing yacht lines is the America line. Named for the schooner from the 1850s, this line has gone on to dominate nearly every Cup race since 1871. With each successive generation, the yachts get bigger and faster, waltzing across the finish line and doing themselves and their lineage proud in their predecessor's namesake race. America proved to be very efficient at passing on the speed gene to her children and winners such as Columbia, Reliance, and Cambria graced the courses. America's most successful champion was her daughter Westward. Born in 1910, the schooner was a freak of nature. Never losing a single one of her 270 odd races. And like her mother, she was extremely influential to future generations with names such as Shamrock and Australia appearing in print.
In 1986 a new champion was born, a 12-metre class yacht that was to be the last winner of her ancestor's race. Stars and Stripes had relatively humble beginnings despite her pedigree. Her father was Intrepid, winner of the 1970 America's Cup. Her mother, Liberty had become the first American yacht in 132 years to lose the cup to a foreign challenger but her bloodline spoke volumes of what she could pass on to her daughter. Liberty was by Ranger who was also a cup winner. He proved to be quite the stud after retirement. His name is seen in over 70% of the world's racing yachts today. Ranger's mother was the Canadian champion schooner Bluenose who passed on the endurance and durability of her kind to future generations. When Ranger was paired with a daughter of America, the outcome was inevitable even if it had to skip a generation. Intrepid had a very similar bloodline to Liberty, also being sired by Ranger with America's name through his dam's side. Although the inbreeding was extreme and of some cause for concern, it did not appear to affect Stars and Stripes in any negative way. Liberty's chief strategist Dennis Conner, would be Stars and Stripes captain and believed strongly in bonding with a vessel before commanding it. Stars and Stripes took to him almost instantly and as soon as she was old enough to be weened, left her mother to live with him. When she turned a year old, she was put into training and took to it with relish. Conner would comment on how she would "prance before the line like a giddy schooner and when her nose faced the course, she would take off running like the devil himself was on her tail."
Off the racetrack, Stars and Stripes had a very similar personality to her mother, so similar in fact that Conner nicknamed her "Little Liberty" even though she was bigger than her mother. That mellow gentle sweetness endeared her to many and she was particularly devoted to her skipper. Loyalty is a trademark of any yacht but Stars and Stripes took it to a whole new level, even going so far as to sleep outside Conner's bedroom window (sitting on her trailer as she was too big by then to sleep indoors.) "It was nice." Conner would say later on. "Because I didn't need an alarm. My alarm would be her nudging me out of bed and proceeding to lick my face. There could be worse wake up calls I suppose." But there were certain traits that set her apart from her parents. From a very young age, Stars and Stripes displayed an intelligence very different from her mother's. "Liberty took a while to figure out what she needed to do out there. Stars and Stripes understood it from the word go!" Conner said. "I'd just point her in the right direction and she'd handle the rest. When she broke in front of the others, there was no way anyone was ever going to catch her. She handled herself like a professional every single time she ran." Undefeated at 2, Stars and Stripes was entered in the Louis Vitton, a necessary stepping stone towards the America's Cup. Winning her first heats in record time, the sleek racer faced her first defeat in 12 starts to an upstart boat named KZ7. KZ7 was of the Shamrock lineage. Born late in the year, she was technically the only boat there that was still a 2 year old. (Like racehorses, yachts all share a universal January 1st birthday) Lightly raced in just 5 previous starts, she handled herself like she was a seasoned professional. Stars and Stripes, who handled better in heavier winds (it was light winds the day she lost) was determined to beat her rival. "I think she knows she lost." Conner said after the race. "She knows that other boat got across the line first and she's gonna be gunning for her the next time they go out." He wasn't wrong. Stars and Stripes knew she had lost and she was furious about it! Where Liberty would sulk in the back of her berth, Stars and Stripes let her frustration show. She fought her handlers and the tug all the way back to the docks, snaking and shying with fangs showing the whole time. She was unapproachable for nearly a full day until Conner managed to calm her down somewhat. "She wasn't angry with anyone but she needed to let off some steam somehow. The only one she was truly angry at was herself. I think inwardly she was berating herself." Conner explained in a later interview. "Once she calmed down, she would do what her mother did. She'd sit in the back of her berth, she doesn't want to be bothered and she'd let you know it too if you tried. But she'd sit there, nose to the wall and I could see she'd be thinking hard. I'd say 'what are you thinking about'? Next time she would race, she'd set a record." Stars and Stripes swept the remaining trial races, earning herself the title of the America's Cup Challenger. A series of match races against the Australian winner, Kookabura III would be held in Perth in early 1987.
The start of Stars and Stripes' four year old season saw her at the forefront of yacht racing in the world's most prestigious race. The America's Cup. The course would be 8 legs long, 2 legs longer than Stars and Stripes had ever run before but the yacht didn't seem bothered by the distance. Deckhand Steve Marshall: "When we first arrived and after the fanfare had subsided somewhat, Conner took her out to look over the course just to see what it would be like. Stars and Stripes sat at what would be the line for a moment, looking at the course in front of her like she was analyzing it, then she tossed her head and snorted as if to say 'I got this'. Conner looked pretty confident when they came back in so I can assume that's what she meant." Whatever Stars and Stripes meant to say, she was right. In the first race she walked away with the victory, beating Kookabura by a comfortable 6 lengths. The second race was a bit tighter with Stars and Stripes needing to come from off the pace. She passed Kookabura late in the last leg to win eased by 3. With the score 2-0 and light winds the next day, a brief pause in the series was called allowing both vessels a time to rest. Stars and Stripes didn't take to the unexpected berth time very well and the schooner in her reared its mischievous head. "It's always been said that a bored sailboat is the worst kind of sailboat. And that's a fact." Conner said. Stars and Stripes was no different. After cribbing out her entire berth, the sailboat went on a little jaunt around the harbor. Naturally the authorities had a field day. A reporter who was on her way to work that day happened to stop by in time to see the events unfold. "She was playing with them, no doubt about it. The police would come up with their motorboats and their sirens and she would just stand there until they got close and then she'd take off running. They'd give chase. She'd jibe and come at them, playing chicken. They'd dive out of the way and the game would begin again. It only ended when Conner got a bucket of flax (highly nutritious, flax seed was also a favorite food of Stars and Stripes.) and began shaking it. She heard that and it was like a pony to the feeder. Only this was a 65 foot yacht that somehow managed to make the whole thing seem funny and adorable at the same time!"
Given no punishment for her antics, Stars and Stripes returned to the course the following day. The outcome was clear the moment the flags went up. To no one's surprise but Kookabura's, Stars and Stripes extended her winning streak to 3. The same number her mother before her had achieved before fading to eventually lose the Cup. Many people had questions about whether her daughter would suffer the same fate. She was fast yes, but the Cup could be a far more brutal opponent than anything the course had to offer. And it nearly got the better of the American. The night before the final race, Stars and Stripes became ill. The cribbing she'd done a day earlier had caused large amounts of arsenic to become built up in her system. While thankfully not life threatening to the yacht (arsenic is a poison to most other ships but for racing yachts its actually a nutritional supplement in small amounts while in large amounts it has an affect similar to colic) Stars and Stripes' fever was the cause for concern. The medicine normally used to help keep it from getting too high would've barred her from competing and the yacht knew it. "She would not let any of us near." Conner said. "Each time we tried she'd bare her teeth and back away as if to say 'I'm not in a good mood, leave me be!' It was only after the doctor's left and she calmed down that I understood. I know some of the crew weren't thrilled but I'd learned to listen to Stars and Stripes by now. Not that I had much of a choice to begin with. What she wants, she gets."
Thus the next morning, Stars and Stripes would face Kookabura one last time. She left her berth early as Conner wished to see how she would handle. She was still running a bit of a temperature and racing was bound to make it worse. Medics were on standby in case she collapsed during the race. Many expected her to. "Word had gotten out and many of the betters turned their backs on her. For the first time in the series, she was not the favorite." Kookabura was 3-5 while Stars and Stripes went off at 3-2. The American didn't seem to notice though or if she did, she didn't care. When Conner brought her up to the line the first time she stared at the commitee boat for a moment and then simply heeled over on her anchor, a position that only a really relaxed sailboat would take.
In the minutes before the start, it was Kookabura who was doing all the maneuvering. Stars and Stripes simply sat there, sails luffing as she waited for the signal. Her eyes were closed as though she was sleeping. Was her fever taking its toll? No doubts but Conner wasn't worried. "I don't think the fever was much of a problem. I've been on her when she's sleeping and she wasn't sleeping here. She was in one of those zones that she gets sometimes, where she's pulling it all together into one single focus. She knew this was the race she had to win, the one that mattered. I don't know if she knew the Cup was on the line but I do know she understood the importance of this victory. So she simply let the competition wear herself out with pointless maneuvering when she had already positioned us in the perfect spot relative to the wind for the first leg."
When the horn sounded it was like Stars and Stripes hadn't been sitting still at all. She was off and racing before Kookabura had even lined up properly yet. Sails filling with wind, Stars and Stripes opened several lengths on her competitor as she rounded the first mark. The breeze was a stiff 20 knots, the kind of wind she excelled at. "Kookabura, some credit has to be given to her because she absolutely ran her eyeballs out. On the last leg, I could tell Stars and Stripes was getting tired. The fever was getting to her because she was slower this lap than before and she was starting to foam out a little bit. Before the race, I'd tossed the helm extender overboard (the extender was often used as a crop to urge the yacht on in the stretch). I wasn't going to ask her if she felt like she couldn't do it." But Stars and Stripes had more heart in her than Conner had anticipated. When Kookabura edged up alongside, the American champion responded. "It was like she'd found a second wind all of a sudden. She just picked up those sails and flew. She wasn't going to let the Australian go by without a good fight first." The two top class racers dueled the last 2 legs, giving fans the thrill of a lifetime. After all, this is what a match race was all about. To have two of the best racers in the world going at it! Rounding the final mark, the two racers were noses apart as they continued their duel upwind to the committee boat. Kookabura, by now thoroughly washed out from her efforts, tried to pull ahead and get the American into her wind shadow but Stars and Stripes wasn't having it. She put her nose in front and the two crossed the line with a mere second time difference between them. "The win was gutsy, courageous and I think it represented Stars and Stripes more than any other win in her career. She was a great racer and she had an ever greater heart. She put it all on the line that day and came out on top through sheer will. How many racing yachts can say the same?"
Retirement was inevitable after this win. The America's Cup was the most prestigious race and no other could compare. There was simply no vessel left for her to beat. Returning to the United States to a champion's welcome, Stars and Stripes was turned out at the NYYC's yacht grounds for 50 days to recuperate before being officially retired and sent to the breeding shed. Though humans are the only species known to shed tears, it is said that when she was sailed away from Conner, Stars and Stripes cried.
Stars and Stripes has proven just as successful in breeding as her predecessors have been. Oracle Racing's entire fleet is composed of sons and daughters of this wonderful jenny. Two have become Cup winners with a third set to defend the title. If she wins, Stars and Stripes will have tied with America for the number of Cup winners produced by a Cup winner. She is truly one of the all-time greats.