America’s Cup Hall of Fame Welcomes Three New Inductees
The America’s Cup Hall of Fame has inducted three new nominees in a lavish ceremony held inside the New York Yacht Club’s (NYYC) opulent model room. The star-studded, gala affair, with a who’s who of America’s Cup and yachting history, was in many ways another coronation of two of the cast of characters from the legendary 26th Match held in Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1986. As history has documented, it was the San Diego Yacht Club’s Stars & Stripes defeating the Royal Perth Yacht Club’s Kookaburra 4-0.
The Herreshoff Marine Museum/America’s Cup Hall of Fame welcomed John “JB” Barnitt, who sailed on Stars & Stripes 87; Kookaburra 3’s co-designer and skipper Iain Murray; and Hope Goddard Iselin into the Class of 2023.
“The two men and one woman in this year’s class hail from the West Coast, Australia, and the East Coast, but they all raced in the America’s Cup, and contributed to the Cup via another discipline, including photography, boat building, and regatta management,” said Steve Tsuchiya, AC HoF Selection Committee chair. “We’re thrilled to welcome this multi-talented group to the Hall of Fame!”
Edith Hope Goddard Iselin was a “titanic” presence in an era when women didn’t have the right to vote, let alone be allowed on board an America’s Cup yacht during a race. Mrs. Iselin took photos while on board at a time when cameras had only recently been invented, and was a pioneer in yachting as the first American woman to have raced in the America’s Cup. She made history by winning the Cup three times as a member of the afterguard aboard Defender (1895), Columbia (1899), and Reliance (1903).
Iain Murray’s storied path is one of the most diverse and remarkable track records in sailing. He was born in Sydney, Australia, and is a yacht designer, boat builder, offshore sailor, Olympic competitor and coach, and multiple-time 18ft Skiff World Champion, including races on San Francisco Bay.
Murray’s career in the America’s Cup is just as varied, from entering the sport as a young skipper in the 1980s on Syd Fischer’s Advance, to leading Kookaburra 3 against Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes, and now serving as one of the most highly regarded regatta directors in the history of the competition with SailGP and the 34th through 37th America’s Cups.
He also led Spirit of Australia in San Diego in 1992, struggling with a lack of funding, and then, in 1995, was with One Australia, which sank to the bottom of the Pacific on a stormy day in a race against New Zealand when the boat split in half. He is completely trusted and admired by sailors in competition and peers alike.
“For me it was a very emotional and special privilege; it means a lot when you work at something for a long period of time, in my case with the America’s Cup in two stints over 41 years. It’s been a long journey,” Murray said. “So to have all your peers come to vote for you, come to support you, and come to hear you doesn’t happen very often.”
Murray paid homage to his mentor Syd Fischer — who recently passed away and who had given him his first America’s Cup opportunity as skipper of Advance in 1983 — as well as others like Jimmy Spithill on Young Australia in 2000.
John “JB” Barnitt is a highly accomplished sailor who has crewed on four America’s Cup yachts and won international sailing’s oldest prize three times.
What sets Barnitt apart from many other sailors is that he achieved this feat in three different types of yachts, winning the Cup in 1987 with Stars & Stripes, a 12-Meter representing the San Diego Yacht Club, and then a year later in a controversial Deed of Gift, NY Supreme Court-ordered Match, on a wing-sailed catamaran off Point Loma in San Diego, California
Barnitt, who won his third America’s Cup in 2003 as starboard grinder with the Swiss challenger Alinghi, remains connected to the world’s most prestigious yacht race. As founder/president of Symmetrix Composite Tooling, he leads a team that builds full-scale master patterns and molds of the hulls and spars of NYYC’s AC75 American Magic.
“When Jack Sutphin asked Lowell North if I might be interested in trying out with Dennis Conner on the Stars & Stripes, I had no idea what that might entail, I had never been match racing.
“I had never sailed a 12-Meter, I had never sailed with wire jib sheets or sailed with sails that weighed more than me!” Barnitt continued. “I had no idea that it would lead to four AC campaigns, or that it would lead to having dinner with you fine folks here at [one of] the most beautiful and storied yacht clubs in the world.”