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Person Oh, Canada We sent an e-mail to Bob Hughes, owner/skipper of the Farr 40 Heartbreaker who finds himself in the thick of what appears to be a bullshit situation involving the Canada's Cup. He was kind enough to lay it all out for us. Good times? Thanks for your interest in dialogue on the Canada's Cup. Growing up on the lake Michigan I always hoped to race in the Canada's Cup some day. In 2001 the Cup was finally raced again between Bayview YC and RCYC after years of sitting on the shelf. The two clubs could not agree on a boat to use and people we not going to spend the money to build custom one offs just for the Cup. So the smart move was made to use Farr 40's. I live on the west side of the state Grand Rapids and my club is in Holland, Macatawa Bay YC. In 2001 BYC agrees to defend the Cup against RCYC but could not come up with a solid defense team. At this point we approached about defending for BYC and jumped at the chance, sold the 1D35 and bought a new Farr 40. The Cup was sailed at BYC under great conditions, we lost 7-5. We were faster and had Terry Hutchinson as tactician who did a great job but my inexperience on the match racing start line hurt us. All in all a great event that got the C Cup back in play. RCYC was the defender now and the plan was to race again in two years. BYC was named Challenger of record but in the end could not field a team so there was no US trials. MBYC jumped in as Challenger of record and we raced Defiant up in Toronto in Sept of 2004. Great series, we lost 7-5 again and two races were less than two seconds deltas!!! No excuse but my head was a bit up my ass on the starting line and we still almost won even thought we lost a race or two due to mechanicals. John Kostecki was out tactician then. So, after regrouping I was determined to win the Canada's Cup before I died and RCYC agreed to let MBYC be challenger of record because we had answered the bell the last two Cups. We kept in close contact for a couple of years and agreed to race again in 2007. This was after lengthy discussions and finally RCYC agreed after we pursued them for two years. The match was scheduled for late Sept 2007. My goal was to make the C Cup relevant again so we wanted to have US trials and we had at least two other teams lined up to challenge us for the right to be the defender. MBYC was going to host the trials in summer of 2007 and got to work on lining up judges and sponsorship. In the mean time I realized that in order to win the Cup I need to focus on match racing and decided to not send the boat down south this winter (for the first time in many years!) and instead do some match racing practice out in San Diego this winter. Then in late 2007 after accepting the challenge in writing the RCYC decides to bail on the Cup because RCYC doesn't want to fund the skipper. RCYC says they cannot find a defender....that is BS, there are 4 Farr 40's at RCYC and it has been four years since the Cup was last raced and it is time to race and build on momentum that we built the last two Cups making the Cup a real deal again. They are holding the Cup hostage and trying to spin it....They need to field a team and compete on the water. They have the $$, but are now screwing us and holding back the Cup from being a real event. 2007 makes the most sense to race, it has been four years, it would be coming right off the Americas Cup so lots of buzz and the Farr 40 Worlds are in Europe in 2007. I just want them to race in 2007, there is no excuse, they did accept the challenge (I have all of this in writing) and were were building some serious momentum with real US trials. Some of the people on RCYC committee are not the friendliest and do not get the big picture. The deed says they have to hand over the Cup if the do not accept the challenge, well they already accepted! I have no intention of winning Cup that way, want to race on the water fare and square, and preferably against Terry McLaughlin. These are the facts and I can back them all up. MBYC which is much smaller than RCYC has really stepped up to the plate and we looked forward to holding US trials. Sorry for the long winded note but wanted to give you the history, the Great Lakes needs a great big boat match racing series, the Canada's Cup should be huge again!! Robert L. Hughes 02/09/07 |