A Sad 25th America’s Cup Anniversary

Through the highs and lows of America’s Cup history, historian Hamish Ross reflects on one of the very dark days:

On March 14, 1997, 25 years ago, a self-proclaimed Maori activist (above) having 17 prior court appearances on other criminal charges, smashed the America’s Cup while it was on public display at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

The Cup was repaired free of charge by the then Royal Jewelers, Garrard, the original maker of America’s Cup between May 1848 and May 1849. The repair involved extensive work with many parts being remade and re-inscribed in many places.

Unknown at the time, two left-over replaced pieces were retained by the silversmith who undertook the work and were later illegally sold to third parties. When this came to light in 2006, the writer on behalf of the then Cup Trustee, Societe Nautique de Geneve, took legal action with the assistance of Garrard, to recover the pieces from two parties who had received them, one of whom was attempting to publicly auction the largest piece and had received an offer of US$1m from an unknown party.

The recovered pieces passed from Trustee to Trustee with the Cup until the RNZYS, on the writer’s recommendation in 2018, had them melted them down to reincorporate them into the Cup trophy as the bottom base was remade to accommodate more match details than was hitherto possible.

For his trouble, the criminal who caused the damage was sentenced to two years and 10 months jail time (later reduced on appeal). He had to be moved several times while in jail, after being attacked by other inmates for his crime of damaging what they called “our Cup”, which goes to show even convicted criminals are infused with America’s Cup pride in New Zealand.