Australia Primed for First Cup Challenge Since 2000

Thirty years after it won its only America's Cup, Australia is back with a potentially strong challenge.

On Monday, Hamilton Island Yacht Club was confirmed as challenger of record for the next America's Cup by the defender, Golden Gate Yacht Club.

Oracle Team USA, which represents Golden Gate, won the Cup last week in San Francisco by defeating Emirates Team New Zealand in the biggest comeback in the competition's 162-year history.

Oracle, owned by the American software mogul Larry Ellison, rallied from an 8-1 deficit to win eight straight races and prevail, 9-8, in a match contested in extreme 72-foot catamarans.

Oracle had four Australian sailors in its crew, including the skipper and helmsman Jimmy Spithill, and several others in its support team, including General Manager Grant Simmer.

Team New Zealand also had two Australians in its crew, and Nathan Outteridge, another young Australian star, was the helmsman for the Swedish challenger Artemis Racing.

Despite all that talent, no Australian team has challenged for the Cup since 2000. The Hamilton Island Yacht Club's challenge is headed by the Australian Bob Oatley and his son Sandy. Bob Oatley, one of Australia's wealthiest people, made his fortune as a trader and then as one of the pioneers of the country's wine export industry, initially with the Rosemount winery.

Like Ellison, Oatley owns an island. Ellison, one of the world's richest men, recently purchased nearly all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai; Oatley and his family own Hamilton Island on the edge of Australia's Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.

It is a beautiful part of the world for a relaxed Sunday sail, but Oatley has long been a passionate ocean racer. A series of his yachts, all named Wild Oats, have taken line honors in six of the last eight Sydney-Hobart races, and he was part of Australia's winning of the Admiral's Cup, once the sport's premier ocean-racing event for national teams.

"Given Australia's previous success in the America's Cup, the Admiral's Cup and Olympic yachting, and as proud Australians, we think it is time for our nation to be back in our sport's pinnacle event," Oatley said in a statement released by Golden Gate Yacht Club. "The recently completed America's Cup in San Francisco has revolutionized the sport for sailors and fans, and we were excited to see how many Australians played key roles in the teams and in the regatta organization."

Iain Murray, the Cup's regatta director, is an Australian and a friend of Oatley and his family. A former America's Cup helmsman, Murray also has sailed regularly on Wild Oats. But Murray said on Monday that he was not part of the Hamilton Island Yacht Club challenge, at least not yet.

"I'm still finishing up here," Murray said in an interview from San Francisco. "I'm going home to Australia on Thursday. I'll go and talk to Bob, just see what he's thinking and go from there."

Murray said Oatley had been interested in the Cup for years.

"Bob's a very traditional yachtsman," Murray said. "It's obviously been on his mind for some time and with the excitement of what's going on and seeing all the Australians involved, he's going: 'Enough's enough. We need to do this for Australia now.' "

An Australian syndicate won the Cup in 1983 in Newport, R.I., becoming the first to beat the New York Yacht Club in the event's already long history. An American team headed by the American Dennis Conner won back the Cup in 1987 in Fremantle, Australia, against a yacht skippered by Murray.

"I think Australians, we used to operate like New Zealand," Murray said. "Australians came and sailed the boats in a very proud nationalistic way, and for Australia not to have been involved since 2000 has hurt a lot of people, so it was probably overdue and welcome to see them coming back."

Murray said Oatley clearly was interested in recruiting Australian talent for his team. The question is whether men like Spithill, the Oracle strategist Tom Slingsby and Outteridge can be lured away from their current employers, and if so, at what price.

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