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The working area of Intrepid is Bus's baby. To lower the center of gravity and assure himself a clear view for ward, the two linked Graydom-Powell coffee-grinder winches (cost: $20,000 each) that control the trim of the jib and spinnaker are located below decks —along with at least the bottom half of every crewman except the skipper. Afraid that the eager Aussies might try to duplicate his design, Mosbacher was furious when Architect Stephens allowed a magazine writer to photograph and measure Intrepid last spring. "The hull is Olin's," Bus fumed, "but the deck and interior are mine." Says George O'Day, an Olympic champion in 5.5 meters and an Intrepid crew member: "You have to understand that this is more than just a race to Bus. Vim and Weatherly weren't his, but he's been with this boat from the start. Intrepid is Bus's own personality."
Judging by Intrepid's performance so far in the elimination trials, the Aussies are in for a bit of heavy weather. Their Twelve, Dame Pattie, has some novel features of her own, including a mainsail that is rumored to weigh only 71 oz. per sq. yd.—one-half ounce less than Intrepid's lightest main. She is longer (by more than a foot) and definitely prettier than Intrepid, and her keel is nearly three tons lighter. In the Australian elimination trials off Sydney last May, she showed impressive speed and maneuverability under the hand of Mosbacher's old antagonist, Jock Sturrock, leaving Gretel wallowing in her wake like a sea turtle.
But Sydney is not Newport, and after watching Dame Pattie in U.S. waters against her trial horse, Nefertiti, most experts do not rate her quite as fast as Intrepid. Three weeks ago, Skipper Sturrock had the bad luck to run her aground in Newport Harbor, necessitating repairs to her keel and the underside of her hull. Intrepid has had a ration of trouble too: one of her two 1,000-lb. aluminum-titanium masts keeps collapsing at awkward moments. When it toppled for the second time on the New York Yacht Club cruise two weeks ago, it catapulted one crewman overboard and another headfirst down a hatch, narrowly missed crunching Bus Mosbacher's skull.
Even so, the only actual race Intrepid has lost all summer came on Long Island Sound in June, when her navigator gave Mosbacher a bum steer —laying a course to the wrong buoy. The boat that won that race was Ameri can Eagle, skippered by George Hinman, a former commodore of the New York Yacht Club. So Eagle's record against Intrepid is comparatively spectacular: one victory, four defeats. Intrepid is 4-0 against Constellation, the 1964 Cup winner. And she has been equally impressive against the West Coast entry, Pat Dougan's remodeled (at a cost of $125,000) Columbia, the boat that was supposed to give her a run, reach and beat for her money. Columbia did not show up for the trials until the action shifted from Long Island Sound to the regular 24.3-mile triangular America's Cup course off Brenton Reef, seven miles south-southeast of Newport. The first time Columbia tackled Intrepid, she lost by 3 min. 46 sec. Second time round, Mosbacher increased Intrepid's victory margin to 4 min. 38 sec. Score to date: 2-0.