22 years on from the 1985 Citizen Cup

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World on 9 May 2007 Over the past few days there has been some discussion about the numbers of Kiwis competing in the various teams in the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup and yet to come America’s Cup.

The accompanying photo is taken at the 1985 Citizen Match Racing Series, an annual event sailed on the Waitemata Harbour, which was where many of the current rock-stars of the America’s Cup cut their match racing teeth - well in advance of what is now the Grand Prix circuit.

The Result Sheet for the 1985 event was impressive: Chris Dickson(NZL) finishing with nine wins, Rod Davis (USA) (7 wins), Gary Jobson(USA) (5 wins), Tom Dodson (NZL) (4 wins), Stefan Roberti (ITA) (4 wins), Iain Murray (AUS) (4 wins) Brad Butterworth (NZL) (4 wins), Harold Cudmore IRL) (3 wins), Russell Coutts (NZL) (3 wins) and Gordon Lucas (AUS) (2 wins).

Dickson was aged 23 at the time and was a late entry, having not been invited in the initial field, coming into the mix after Yves Pajot (FRA) withdrew at the last minute. At the time, he was co-managing the Hood loft in Costa Mesa, California only arriving back in Auckland the day before the regatta. After one practice sail with a hastily arranged crew, Dickson then pulled off nine wins to take the title from Rod Davis.

Crewing for Dickson were Joe Allen (now with Emirates Team New Zealand); Leith Armit; Erle Williams, Carston Schon (now with United Internet Team Germany) Keith Dickson and John Newton. Dickson had previously won the event in 1982 at the age of 19! Dickson had been racing with his father Roy, a very accomplished match racer in his own right, and brothers, for a number of years prior to becoming a skipper in his own right.

The 1985 Citizen Cup regatta was the first major regatta for Russell Coutts, fresh from winning the Gold medal in the Finn class at the 1984 Olympics.

Alan Sefton, then Editor of New Zealand Yachting magazine reports of Coutts 'he did well to recover from the trauma of the first round, first match tangle with the committee boat which he rammed at six knots when Davis fitted him with a perfect shut-out manoeuvre.' (All live on national television, of course).

Competitors sailed privately owned, Stewart 34 keelboats (designed by Bob Stewart and 34ft long in the NZ short-ended style), which were not a strict one design, but were equalised to some extent. There was no round robin – just three races per day for three days – with each crew sailing against the other once. No umpiring – all disputes were settled in the protest room.

The Citizen series continued for a number of years, until the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron commissioned the building of 11 identical Farr MRX yachts, for the World Match Racing Championships in 1990. On the water umpiring was developed and refined and the Citizen Cup became the Steinlager Cup.

In 1989, the final event for the Citizen Cup was staged and was won by Chris Dickson – his third in the event as skipper. Crewing for Dickson in that final event were Joey Allen, Simon Daubney (now with Alinghi) and John Cutler (Desafio Espanol) amongst others.

(Thanks to Alan Sefton for material from New Zealand Yachting magazine)