25th AMERICA's CUP 1983 Newport, Rhode Island, USA
The syndicate was a fully commercialized company and came
across with rule 26 which restricted commercial sponsorship and
advertising on hull or sail.
During 1986 the IYRU ( International Yacht Racing Union)
loosened this rule and took away a lot of pressure on the British
challenger, but also other ones like the KIS Challenge.
The syndicate constructed 2 challengers. Crusader I designed
by Ian Howlett ( Victory 83 !) as a relative conservative concept.
( Note: Less known is the experience of the Victory 83 team
which experimented already with a winged keel in 1983. One
of the reasons that they supported Allen Bond during the
Keelgate-affair.
The second, now radical construction of the designer David
H. J. Hollom was named Crusader II with the nickname
“Hippo” as her above water shape looked like the body
of a hippodrome. Under her new name White Crusader II
she was shipped to Fremantle but did not participate
on the LVC.
The CEO Graham Walker and his team decided to nominate Crusader I as challenger. As Walker had recently purchased
the whiskey brand “White Horse” he called the challenger now “White Crusader “ and used her for his whiskey promotion,
flying once a spinnaker with the White Horse logo – coming across with Rule 26.
(The first time that an AC yacht was used officially as billboard was Conner’s catamaran US-1 with the logos of Pepsi
Cola, Marlboro and Merryl Lynch in race 2 / AC 1988 )
White Crusader / K-24 and the Louis Vuitton Cup 1987
The syndicate constructed 2 challengers. Crusader I designed
by Ian Howlett ( Victory 83 !)
AMERICA’S CUP HISTORY 1983 - 2013
