Free Cricket XXXX Cricket by Frances Edmonds

measured approximately 180 mm above the waterline. Corrections for girth are applied to this measurement.
d =
The chain girth deducted from the skin girth. The skin girth is measured on the surface of the hull from the deck to a point on the keel about midships. The chain girth (measured at the same place) is the length of line stretched taut from the deck to the same point on the keel.
F =
Freeboard, or height of the hull above waterline.
SA =
Sail area includes the mainsail and the fore triangle bounded by the mast, forestay and deck.
2.37 =
Mathematical constant.
     
    Good! Now the semantic nebulosity of twelve-metre has been sorted out, we can all forget it. I merely adverted to the formula because it epitomises the complicated morass of rules, regulations, practices and traditions which govern the America’s Cup. Many syndicates even have rules experts in their camps to advise them on procedure. During the 1983 Cup, for example, the New York Yacht Club challenged the legitimacy of
Australia II’s
radical winged keel. The NYYC lost its appeal, and simultaneously with it waves of grass-roots sympathy – if we may mix the maritime with the pastoral. Since the New Zealanders in Freo are doing so remarkably well in the 1986–87 Louis Vuitton Cup (the award for the successful challenger who will subsequently meet the successful defender), there is currently more American hoo-ha about the Kiwis’ fibreglass twelves, the ‘plastic fantastics’ as they have been so appositely nicknamed.
Stars and Stripes
skipper Dennis Conner has all but called the use of fibreglass instead of aluminium cheating, and fellow Californian
USA II
skipper Tom Blackaller has been heard to utter similar, if less directly litigious, comments.
    No one, as yet, has had the temerity to lodge an official complaint. The New Zealanders have Lloyds, public sympathy, and a lot of brilliant sailing on their side.
    Insufficient knowledge of the rules has also led to certain misunderstandings over sponsorship. There are four Australian syndicates fighting it out for the honour to defend the Cup: two Perth-based syndicates, the Bond syndicate (with its
Australias
), and the Kevin Parry-led Taskforce syndicate (with its
Kookaburras
), which is presently leading the field. There is also a South Australia syndicate and an Eastern Australia Defence syndicate, with its rhyming slang yacht
Steak ’n’ Kidney
, so christened to rhyme with Sydney. Over-enthusiastic donors in the latter two syndicates had not all realised, however, that no matter which Australian syndicate were to win the Cup, that delightfully redundant Garrard artefact would continue to remain bolted securely in place at the Royal Perth Yacht Club. The competition is not between countries or cities, but between individual yacht clubs, and the Australian syndicate which wins the right to defend the Cup, irrespective of whence it comes, will do so on behalf of the Royal Perth Yacht Club.
    This apparently came as something of a shock to certain Sydney hotshot punters, who had fancied the idea of the next series being battled out under the shadow of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. There seems a degree of poetic justice, however, in the fact that the Western Australian underdogs who wrested the Auld Mug from the New York Yacht Club, a club dominant for 132 years in the sport, should be allowed to cherish it while it still remains on Australian soil. Distressingly, though, looking at the Kiwis and the ravening Yanks, that may not be for very much longer.
    The government of Western Australia, expecting vast profits from the tourist industry, has also ploughed millions of dollars into the Cup and its peripherals. Like Treasurer Paul Keating’s tax returns, however, the massive influx of tourists has failed to materialise. Neither does a sudden flood of twelve-metre aficionados seem likely to develop at this late stage to amortise capital investment. The press and syndicate circuses are already in