History
The Baron Bich's proposal
In early November 1966, Baron Bich wrote a letter to Commodore Morgan,
President of the America's Cup Committee of the New York Yacht Club. He
briefly explained the position in which he found himself and the extreme
difficulty in preparing when so many uncertainties were thrown into the
equation. The reply was fairly swift; in a letter dated 23 January 1967,
Commodore Morgan wrote: "The America's Cup Committee met and does
not believe that an appeal to the Supreme Court of the State of New York
in order to modify the 'Deed of Gift' is justified."
Not one to be easily deterred, Marcel Bich continued on with his project.
In 1967, Robert McCullough, one of the Directors of the New York Yacht
Club, in what he has described as one of his greatest achievements, began
a vast campaign among the members of the Board to convince them of the
validity of Baron Bich's proposal.
At the end of the 1967 race, Marcel Bich handed in his application for
the next Cup to the New York Yacht Club, at the same time as the Australians
and the English.
In December 1967, Marcel Bich received yet another letter from the New
York Yacht Club. The letter stipulated that the Club accepted the principle
of multiple challengers and a qualifying phase to select the best Challenger
as long as the qualifying races were held in the waters of Newport, during
the summer of the 1970 America's Cup.
He had won the first battle: to get the New York Yacht Club to allow
multiple challengers and qualifying races among them in order to select
the best candidate.
Given that the rules for the Cup did not permit Challengers to have their
boats designed or built outside their native country, Marcel Bich ensured
that he had all the means to get ahead. But for this, he needed the knowledge,
culture and experience that would lead up to the construction of a competitive
12m J-class. He asked the young American architect, Britton Chance, to
design for him this very particular boat that he then had built in Switzerland
at the "Egger" site. With the knowledge gained from the naval
construction of the "Chancegger," he then asked the French architect,
André Mauric, to study closely the "Chancegger" and design
the first "France." This brilliant idea revealed itself to be
most fruitful, saving a lot of time for the French team who arrived in
Newport with an excellent boat.
Starting from scratch meant that everything had to be created; Claude
Bich would be in charge of design and fabrication of the winches, Serge
Ferrari and Jean-Paul Gateff would work on the sails, while Albert Coedevez
would concentrate on masts. The result was great collaboration and incredible
commitment to be in the best of form in Newport for the first of the qualifying
races in 1970.
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