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Did Bus ever use his famous "tailing start?" No. Did he deliberately engage Gretel in tacking duels? Not on your life: pound for pound, Gretel's crewmen were Goliaths compared with Weatherly's, and besides, her winches were nearly twice as effective. There were lots of other ways. In one race, Sturrock was coming up fast on a reach, and seemed certain to overtake the slower Weatherly. So Mosbacher started changing spinnakers; there was no reason for it, but Sturrock assumed there was, promptly followed suit—and the resulting loss of momentum preserved Weatherly's lead and cost Gretel the race. In another duel, Bus noticed that whenever Jock actually meant to tack, he grabbed the wheel at the bottom; when he was merely faking, he grasped it at the side. Bus naturally ignored the false tacks, and with that tactical advantage had no trouble at all beating the Aussie by an incredible 8 min. 40 sec.
When it was all over, Mosbacher announced his retirement from America's Cup racing. "I've had it," he declared. "Never again." He did manage to stay out of the 1964 defense when Bob Bavier in Constellation scuttled Britain's Sovereign in four straight races; he was still determined to stay ashore when the Australians challenged again this year. Changing his mind was not easy.
His family and friends were all against another campaign. "I told him not to," says Emil Sr.—and so did most of his friends, who argued that he had nothing to gain, everything to lose. Why risk the chance of going down in yachting annals as the man who finally lost the Cup for the U.S.? But the pressures were strong. For one thing, in 1961 he had become the second member of Jewish ancestry (although he is an Episcopal convert) ever elected to the New York Yacht Club.
For another, explains his father, "Bus is extremely patriotic. He's no flag waver, but keeping the Cup here is very important to him." Finally, the Intrepid syndicate, managed by Philadelphia Banker William Strawbridge, offered him a chance to collaborate from the start with Architect Olin Stephens on the design of the yacht. Bus agreed, and eight models, 35 modifications, 18 months of tank tests and $750,000 later, Intrepid slid down the ways at City Island, N.Y., last April—the shortest (at 64 ft.), homeliest, most radical and most expensive 12-meter yacht ever built.
Keep It Low. Much has been made of Intrepid's second rudder, which is actually a "trim tab," similar to an aileron on an airplane and is designed to increase her speed to windward besides making her more maneuverable. A second innovation is her skeg, or "kicker," an extension of the keel that is supposed to cut down wave turbulence and make her faster yet. But all that is underwater. What shows above the wa ter line is pretty radical too: a broken-nosed bow, a titanium-tipped mast, a $22,000 sail inventory that includes a 2,200-sq.-ft. nylon spinnaker that weighs barely 15.8 Ibs.—plus the most of Bus Mosbacher, but only bits of anybody else.