Recapturing slice of sailing glory?

When Rick McAuliffe, a Providence-based lobbyist and supporter of the local sailing community, was 14, his father, Rick, took him and his brother, Jamie, down to Newport Harbor to catch a glimpse of what everyone was talking about.
It was 1983, the America’s Cup was in town, and excitement over the hotly contested race between the New York Yacht Club and the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia had resulted in near pandemonium on Newport’s streets and crowds that grew so large that media took to motorcycle transport and the fire department warned that blocked roads could hamper emergency services. Celebrities docked boats nearby. Yachters threw lavish parties. Revelers lined the streets and filled restaurants, pubs and hotels.
From an economic and tourism view, it was heaven for the City by the Sea. What those revelers didn’t know, however, was that it was also the end of an era that the city and state would spend years desperately trying to get back.
The next step in that quest comes June 26, when The America’s Cup World Series makes its last stop – in Newport – with racing starting June 28.
“I remember the incredible amount of activity, the traffic, and that the restaurants were very full,” McAuliffe said. “I also remember us losing and how much it changed … for Newport.”
That was the year the NYCC lost for the first time since 1857, ending an unfathomable winning streak and also, in many ways, Newport’s sail-racing glory. The America’s Cup event hasn’t been there since.
Many are hoping the city is on the verge of recapturing some of what it lost when the Cup went to the other side of the world nearly 30 years ago.
The effort to bring back the Cup began in great earnest a few years ago when a series of failed bids for major racing events – including the America’s Cup 2013, which will take place in San Francisco – brought renewed light to the city’s limitations: a lack of accommodating space.
Fort Adams has since undergone $1.3 million worth of infrastructure upgrades to compete with other venues around the world.
“In the grand scheme, the words America’s Cup are synonymous with Newport,” said Brad Read, executive director of Sail Newport, who has chaired the America’s Cup Host Committee, a 30-member gubernatorial-appointed board of tourism, marine and economic officials. The committee is promoting a festival village at Fort Adams as the place to watch the racing, filling it with food, music, entertainment, and making it free of charge before racing begins and free for children younger than 12 on race days. “You don’t have to be a sailing enthusiast to enjoy this,” said Evan Smith, executive director of Discover Newport, who has served on the committee and said the events will be broadcast from Fort Adams like “Monday Night Football.”
“It’s very cool and high-tech,” Smith said. “We’d like to use this as a steppingstone to show the sailing community that Newport is ready for other [events].”
How much these statements will ring true when the racing vessels leave town is on the minds of organizers and enthusiasts as they work to attract a large audience, deemed critical to marking the event as successful.
“The everyman didn’t necessarily participate, but they followed it closely,” said Jay Picotte, museum curator at the Museum of Yachting in Newport, referring to the America’s Cup races of the early 1980s. “It was a spectator sport. Everybody followed it whether they’d [ever] been on a boat in their lives.”
Picotte, who has in the last five years curated approximately 10 exhibits centered on Newport’s sailing history, said public interest began when the NYYC, many of whose members summered in Newport, moved the America’s Cup here and the city simultaneously became a major tourist destination.
As racers showed magnanimous personalities and the actual experience of sailing became more accessible, children in particular developed fascinations with the sport.
“Fifteen years ago, professional sailors were celebrities,” Picotte said. “That’s what’s changed [and] I expect it has something to do with TV and the popularity of other sports. Now, so many people are unaware of what’s going on. You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who could name a professional sailor.”
In order to change that, the host committee is going to have to get the public – in particular families – to Fort Adams. Smith admits that marketing has been an “interesting challenge” that was left in somewhat of a “holding pattern” until about a month out. Advertising has relied on social media and promotional partners.
Events unofficially began June 8, with a reception at Fort Adams that was attended largely by host-committee members, racers and their friends, including Rep. Richard Morrison, D-Bristol, as a benefit for the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, the tall ship that Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island is working to rebuild and turn into an education-at-sea vessel.
“This is designed to get people involved,” said Bart Dunbar, OHPRI chair. “In order to stay competitive, you need to have a lot more people understand and participate.”
Edward Burman III, a committee member from Bristol who raced in the NYYC annual Regatta, on the Swan Yacht, held in Newport June 8-10, was also at the reception.
“I think you’ll see a younger generation [interested],” he said. “It’s nice to bring [this] back to Newport. Hopefully, it inspires youth to get busy sailing.”
Having grown up sailing in Wickford village of North Kingstown, Burman is representative of the Newport racing and sailing fan base, as it now stands in the public eye at least – a young professional whose Rhode Island roots are in coastal territory and whose interest was at least in part inherited.
“There are people in Providence County who are sailors, but they tend to be more recreational, fishing boats, kayaking [oriented],” said McAuliffe. “I notice people down in Newport, even those who don’t sail – the restaurant owner, waiter or waitress – have a much keener sense than their counterparts in Providence.”
To have an impact, getting people to the event is just the first step, however.
Exploration stations at Fort Adams are being designed, including by the Museum of Yachting and the University of Rhode Island, to provide exciting education that, they hope, will draw in children.
The adult crowd is being wooed with the promise of a good party. That is, if they find out about it.
“I think the potential for showcasing what can happen is fantastic,” Dunbar said. “There hasn’t been much in the way of making the public aware that this is happening.” •

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