Bennie has a big grin

by Rob Kothe on 8 Feb 2006 One of Australia’s sailing icon’s Ben Lexcen has been at last recognised by the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.

In a very long overdue move the America’s Cup Hall of Fame has today announced
that a legends of America’s Cup sailing – Ben Lexcen (born Robert Miller, New South Wales, Australia) along with Stephen A. Van Dyck (Clearwater, Fla., USA), have been named as the 2006 inductees to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.

Over the last ten years particularly as lesser contributors were recognised, there was a growing animosity towards the Hall of Fame at the omission of Lexcen from its induction lists. For the international audience the naming of Lexcen will have a positive effect, as many sailors, including this writer saw Lexcen’s omission as being inexplicable.

Today America’s Cup Hall of Fame President Halsey C. Herreshoff, who will preside over the Induction Ceremony in October 2006 said: ‘Ben Lexcen oversaw the design of a fantastic 12-Meter yacht Australia II that was the first to lift the Cup from America.'

It might not have been a co-incidence that in August last year the Board of Trustees of the Herreshoff Marine Museum announced the addition of two members to the Selection Committee for its America's Cup Hall of Fame. Australian Rob Mundle (Australia) and Robert Fisher ‘The Fish’ (United Kingdom) were part of the group that selected the Class of 2006.

This morning Mundle was all smiles as he commented on Lexcen’s selection.

‘Long long overdue and just the best possible news. The man is probably setting up stairs with the biggest grin on his face, after all.

‘Many people had expressed concerns at his omission and now that is well behind us and the man who should have been has now been recognised.'

The following precis of Ben's achievements supplied courtesy of the Hall of Fame.


Ben Lexcen, 1936-1988

The man whose name is synonymous with the winged keel, Ben Lexcen was the most prolific Cup designer over the five-match period that ran from 1974 through 1987. Of the six 12-Meter boats that he designed, three sailed in Cup matches. Most important, one of those boats, Australia II, became the first challenger ever to win the America’s Cup.

Born Robert Miller in New South Wales, Australia, he left school at the age of 14 and discovered boats in the coastal town of Newcastle. He built his first boat at 16, started winning races, and became a sailmaker and part-time yacht designer specializing in the 18-foot skiff class, which he revolutionised. He designed light-displacement ocean racers, including Apollo for Alan Bond. When Bond challenged for the America’s Cup for 1974, he commissioned Miller to design his boat. An unusually long 12-Meter, Southern Cross showed bursts of speed, but lost the match. Miller soon after changed his name to Ben Lexcen in order to avoid confusion with the sailmaking firm of which he had been a partner.

From Southern Cross through Australia IV (1987), all his 12-Meters showed a flare of originality. ‘Good ideas are all around us,’ he often said. Lexcen constantly experimented with keels, rigs, and concepts from aircraft design. Lexcen and his associate Johan Valentijn tried out some of these ideas on Bond’s 1977 and 1980 challenger, Australia. In 1980 Lexcen borrowed an idea for a bendy mast from the British challenger and Australia won a light air race.

Bond became convinced that the only way to win the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club was to have a superior boat. In 1981 Lexcen headed the international design team working in the Netherlands and Australia that produced the design that changed America’s Cup and yachting history. The team of Lexcen and two Dutch research scientists, Peter van Oossanen and Joop Slooff, working in Dutch towing tank and aeronautical research facilities, came up with an unusually small hull over an upside-down keel sprouting winglets. Looking unlike any yacht that had ever been launched, Australia II beat Dennis Conner’s Liberty in seven races. Lexcen was later awarded a Member of the Order of Australia.

People who worked with Lexcen have described him as brilliantly intuitive. Bob Fisher, a British yachting journalist and member of the America's Cup Hall of Fame Selection Committee, has described his talent as ‘outrageous in its naiveté, fundamental in its approach, and gloriously effective in its delivery.’ His premature death from a heart attack left a vacuum in Australian yachting, and the entire America’s Cup.


1993-2006 - Hall of Fame Honor Roll
Charles Francis Adams
James L. Ashbury
Charles Barr
J. Burr Bartram
Robert N. Bavier Jr.
John Bertrand
Baron Marcel Bich
Sir Peter Blake
Alan Bond
Dick Brown
Edward Burgess
W. Starling Burgess
Malin Burnham
Bradley W. Butterworth OBE
James E. Buttersworth
William F. Carstens
Dennis Conner
Russell Coutts
Briggs S. Cunningham
Edward I. du Moulin
Sir Michael Fay
William P. Ficker
William Fife III
Henry Coleman Haff
Sir James Hardy
Nathanael G. Herreshoff
F.E. ‘Ted’ Hood
Chandler Hovey
Sherman Hoyt
C. Oliver Iselin
George ‘Fritz’ Jewett Jr.
Gary Jobson
Arthur Knapp Jr.
William I. Koch
Ben Lexcen
Sir Thomas J. Lipton
Harry ‘Buddy’ Melges
E.D. Morgan
Henry Sturgis Morgan
Emil ‘Bus’ Mosbacher Jr.
Frank J. Murdoch
Charles E. Nicholson
Sir Frank Packer
General Charles J. Paine
Alan Payne
Victor A. Romagna
Morris Rosenfeld
Stanley Rosenfeld
Tom Schnackenberg
George L. Schuyler
Henry Sears
T.O.M. Sopwith
George Steers
John Cox Stevens
Olin J. Stephens II
Roderick Stephens Jr.
Jack Sutphen
R.E. ‘Ted’ Turner
Stephen A. Van Dyck
Harold S.Vanderbilt
Gertrude Vanderbilt
George L. Watson
Thomas A. Whidden
The Earl of Wilton