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"He has a tremendous ability to focus and a unique ability to raise his game when it gets the most difficult. The greater the challenge, the more intense and focused he becomes. He's unique for that." This is how Ed Baird in 2001 described Russell Coutts, the most successful skipper of the early 21st century: three-time winner of the America's Cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003.
A century earlier, Charlie Barr had achieved the same feat: winning the Cup three times in succession in 1899, 1901 and 1903, without losing a single race.
In the 1930s, Harold "Mike" Vanderbilt did the same, but in the 1934 series he lost two races against Thomas Sopwith. Not one of the three ever lost the America's Cup.
Coutts discovered sailing when he was six-years-old, in a small popular dinghy, the P-Class. He won his first regatta when nine-years-old.
After some national titles, he became in the world champion in the Finn single-handed dinghy in 1981, the same class of boat in which he won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games.
Two years later, he was Graeme Woodroofe's tactician aboard the 12-metre KZ-3 for the 1987 world championship in Freemantle, Australia.
He opted to finish his Auckland University studies in engineering rather than race in the 1987 America's Cup.
In 1988, Coutts sailed the One Ton Cup aboard Fair Share, then the following year moved into match racing.
At the end of 1992 he dethroned Chris Dickson to become world champion. He competed in the Soling keelboat for the 1992 Olympic Games, sailed as tactician on Pinta in the 1993 One Ton Cup and the same year won the Two Ton Cup as well as the Admiral's Cup under the German banner.
In 1996, he sailed the Sydney to Hobart race with Morning Glory, having been named "World Sailor of the Year" in 1995. He remains a central figure on the world match racing circuit, where he continues to excel.
His introduction to the America's Cup in 1992 was difficult. Coutts preferred to stay as skipper of the back-up boat, New Zealand NZL 14, for Michael Fay's syndicate, allowing Rod Davis and his tactician David Barnes to sail the delicate NZL 20, fitted with a tandem keel, in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
In the final, Il Moro di Venezia ITA 25 skippered by Paul Cayard, trailed by four victories to one, but then lodged a protest against the New Zealanders over the use of a bowsprit.
The battle off the water was fierce and saw the score amended to three races to one.
Fay immediately replaced Davis with Coutts who had steered the atypical NZL 20 only three times. Coutts went on to lose the Louis Vuitton Cup final, but three years later, under the leadership of Peter Blake, Coutts took his revenge.
He won with Black Magic NZL 32 the Louis Vuitton Cup and took from Paul Cayard the America's Cup.
In 1995, from a total of 43 races, Coutts registered just one defeat against oneAustralia AUS 31.
In 2000 he defended the Cup with Team New Zealand NZL 60 against Luna Rossa ITA 45, skippered by Francesco De Angelis.
In the fifth race, with four wins already to his credit, he gave the wheel to the young Dean Barker and became a national hero.
Not for a long, however, as he soon left to team up with Ernesto Bertarelli of Switzerland, to the great displeasure of his countrymen.
He again became a challenger and seized the America's Cup for Switzerland in 2003 with Alinghi SUI 64, crushing the defender Team New Zealand NZL 82 skippered by Barker by five races to nil.
The euphoria though was short lived. A controversy developed between Coutts and Bertarelli in 2004, as only the Cup can generate.
Coutts will not be present in the arena in 2007. But let us hope that this discreet, modest and warm man, a diligent golfer and lover of fine wines, will return to the America's Cup.
J.T.
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