by David Salter
‘Too much puff? Want to call it off?’ I asked.
‘Nah, she’ll be right,’ smiled Bob through his trademark rapid blink, pulling on a couple of extra pullovers. It was a wet ride at the end of the Contender’s trapeze, and he clearly expected an early dunking or two.
For the next hour the film crew was treated to a thrilling display of power sailing. Miller cranked his design up onto a succession of spectacular, screaming reaches while spray flew and the camera whirred. But on the last gybe the mainsheet jammed and pitched Contender into a nasty capsize. Any other sailor would have slowly brought the boat head-to-wind, righted it and then carefully sorted out the snarl. Not Bob. He just leapt onto the fin, scrambled aboard and immediately began kicking the tripe out of the jammed snatch-block that had caused the pickle. Within seconds the sheet untwisted and Miller was back out on the trapeze, roaring off on another reach as if to teach the recalcitrant boat a lesson. It was a telling insight into Bob’s whole approach to sailing. He always seemed to have an acute natural feel for the forces at work, and never hesitated to test them to the limit.
A year after the Contender triumph, a millionaire Sydney cleaning contractor wanted to challenge the world 24-hour distance record under sail. Miller designed him a 35-foot plywood trimaran meant to rise on its hydro-foils from 15 knots of true wind. On the launch day we all sat around glumly as not a single breath of wind ruffled the water. Bob could contain his frustration no longer. He just had to know if his design worked. ‘Bugger it. We’ll tow the bloody thing!’
Within minutes he’d commandeered a large speedboat with twin outboards and was dragging his creation up and down Blackwattle Bay at increasing speeds, watching intently as the foils struggled to yield any lift. On the third run there was that terrible, telltale groan of fittings under extreme load and then a mighty bang! as the rudder sheared off. ‘Well, at least we know we’ve gotta strengthen that.’ Bob always preferred the proof of practical testing to theoretical calculations back in the design studio. In fact, he believed that if things didn’t break on a boat they were most probably over-engineered. His lifelong campaign against unnecessary displacement was summed up in a favourite saying: ‘The only place weight’s any good is in a bloody steam-roller!’
A decade after the trimaran disaster Bob Miller had become Ben Lexcen. Considerable sailing folklore has accumulated around the mystery of why he changed his name. The truth of the matter provides an instructive insight into an uncomfortable intersection between the forces of individual genius and the profit motive. The successful sailmaking, chandlery and design business Miller had built up with Craig Whitworth was a limited company. As such, it legally ‘stood separate to its owners’. While the restless Bob was away designing and campaigning yachts, Whitworth – quite legally – gradually bought Miller out of the company, but continued to trade under the well-established ‘Miller & Whitworth’ name. After the disappointing Southern Cross challenge for the America’s Cup in 1974, Bob went for a year without a design commission. But owners were still getting new boats drawn with the prestigious ‘Miller & Whitworth’ name on the plans. Those designs had, as I understand it, been done by lesser-known designers.
Bob was so angered when he discovered this that he consulted a lawyer. ‘What can I do about it?’ asked the distressed designer.
‘Nothing,’ said the lawyer, ‘it’s entirely legal.’
Bob, who always believed that concerted action and applied intelligence could solve any problem, was seething. ‘But there must be something I can do!’
‘Well,’ said the lawyer, half-joking, ‘you could always change your name.’
And that’s exactly what he did. To find a surname, Bob set his computer the task of running endless random permutations until he found one that looked unique. How about ‘Lexcen’? There weren’t any Lexcens listed in the phone book. That’ll do. As for a new first name, he just called himself after the family dog, Ben. The formalities were processed by deed poll in 1977. Problem solved, and under that new name his designing career soon regathered momentum until its glorious climax in the 1983 America’s Cup.
The story of Australia II’s wonderful come-from-behind win at Newport has been told many times and need not detain us here. My own view is that the Bond syndicate’s intensive sail development program – especially Hugh Treharne’s work on light-weather spinnakers – may have contributed at least as much to that victory as the legendary winged keel. But the keel grabbed all the headlines and certainly gave the Australians a tremendous propaganda advantage.
What’s easy to forget among all the historical hype is that Australia II was an outstanding 12-metre design. Ben, in private, was no great fan of the metre rule, calling the boats it yielded ‘old-fashioned lead mines’. His mind was far more stimulated by the excitement of experimentation and radical design ideas. Even the America’s Cup competition was beginning to bore him and he was irritated by the mythology of the whole event. Before the final races in 1983 he said that if Australia managed to win, he’d take the Cup itself to West 44th Street (the home of the New York Yacht Club), hire a steam-roller and run over the venerable trophy until he’d turned it into ‘The America’s Plate’. At the presentation ceremony on the balcony of the old Vanderbilt mansion in Newport after Australia II’s win, NYYC Commodore Robert Stone Jr presented Ben with a battered Plymouth hubcap in humorous acknowledgement of that characteristically provocative remark.
Australia II made Ben world-famous, but he never lost his cheery, knockabout way of deflating the mumbo-jumbo of modern naval architecture. In 1984 he accepted my invitation to provide expert commentary for Channel Seven’s coverage of the start of the Sydney–Hobart race. I was crewing on Apollo, a powerful 83-foot aluminium maxi he’d co-designed for Jack Rooklyn. By the magic of what was then cutting-edge technology we could send ‘live’ pictures from the deck and inject my own comments as we thundered down the harbour alongside Nirvana and Condor, just managing to hold on to a giant shy kite. Spinnaker starts in the Hobart are always spectacular, but this one was truly dramatic.
‘Tell me, Ben,’ interposed the anchorman, ‘how much force would there be in that spinnaker? About how many pounds?’
After a long pause, Lexcen just said, ‘Oh, a fair bit. Hard to say, really.’
From the leeward coffee-grinder on Apollo I chipped in with, ‘Come on, Ben, you designed the boat. You should know the numbers if anyone does.’
Another long pause. Then that familiar Queensland drawl: ‘Well, mate, in this breeze I reckon the pull would be equivalent to about two Mack trucks going flat chat.’
In a single laconic quip he’d given the audience a vivid impression of just how much grunt was in that monstrous spinnaker. Four hours later, close-hauled off Port Kembla, I was still chuckling at his remark.
The last time I saw Ben was at a Sydney nightclub for the somewhat bizarre product launch of a winged skateboard he’d designed (because, he claimed, he was sick of falling off the conventional variety). There’d already been hints of cardiac problems during the 1983 campaign in Newport and he seemed short of breath and uncomfortable amid the showbiz glitz of such a blatantly commercial event. Ben’s spirits only picked up as he explained his new-found enthusiasm for computers and the way they were beginning to take much of the arithmetic drudgery out of designing yachts. We managed a brief chat above the noise of the disco music and went our separate ways. Lexcen’s heart suddenly gave out a few days later.
With an ounce more luck, Ben might still be with us today. When his wife Yvonne rang for the ambulance after the heart attack she told them that the driveway to their house in Seaforth was very steep and that they’d have trouble getting out unless they backed the vehicle down. Regrettably, the paramedics didn’t take her advice and there was a considerable delay before the ambulance could make it back up to the main road. The closest hospital, Manly, decided Ben was in pretty poor shape and would stand a better chance at the much larger Royal North Shore Hospital, six k
ilometres away at St Leonards. Then, just as the ambulance came to the bottom of the hill to cross Middle Harbour, the Spit Bridge was raised for one of its scheduled openings to let sailing boats pass through. That 10-minute delay was crucial. By the time the ambulance arrived at Royal North Shore, Ben was dead.
It’s doubtful whether the Miller/Lexcen name will ever be admitted to the popular pantheon of great naval architects. He never designed for the eye. Ben-Bob was only interested in drawing a graceful line if it was also fast. His total output was small because of a short working life, and because so much of that time was consumed by the four 12-metre campaigns he waged with Alan Bond. Nevertheless, boats such as Rampage, Ceil III, Mercedes III, Ginkgo, Plum Crazy and the 12-metres were all genuine breakthrough designs. Let’s hope at least some of them can be preserved as tangible proof of his creative genius. Lexcen’s influence on 25 years of Australian sailing surely deserves commemoration. Yet what endures most powerfully about Ben for me is the memory of his personality. The media – when he could be bothered to speak with them at all – relied on Lexcen for quotes of disarming frankness. Asked to comment on a dismal regatta steering a Soling through the endless windshifts of the 1972 Olympics he reckoned he needed ‘two years of practice in light weather, and a seeing-eye dolphin’.
My own most vivid memory of Ben-Bob’s unique character has nothing to do with sailing. In his younger days he had a habit of ‘going for a bit of a burn’ late at night around the streets of Sydney’s northern peninsula to clear his head when some knotty engineering problem was preventing sleep. Those noctural automotive excursions were usually undertaken in his vintage Ferrari. Noticing a jumble of automotive parts in his garage one afternoon I tentatively asked what this latest project entailed. ‘Well,’ muttered Bob, ‘I’m sick of those bloody hoons in souped-up Monaros and Falcon GTO’s always trying to drag me off at the lights.’ Hmnn. So? ‘I’m gonna get the Ferrari donk and bung it in the wife’s little Fiat 850. Might need a bit of work but I reckon I can make the engine mountings match up almost exactly. That’ll scare the shit out of ’em!’
I don’t know whether he ever made good on this crazy scheme, but it’s enough for me just to summon up the image of Ben-Bob’s rapid blink and mischievous grin as he hurtled up the Wakehurst Parkway leaving the local louts in a haze of tyre smoke. Australian sailing needs another larrikin like Ben-Bob.
I did never see,
In all my sufferance ransacking the seas,
A spectacle so full of miseries.
Homer’s Odyssey
IT WAS MY GOOD MATE Steve Grellis on the phone. Steve is a resourceful and well-qualified sailor with whom I’ve done thousands of happy miles. ‘Hey, Dave. D’ya fancy giving us a hand next week delivering a new 49-footer from Pittwater to Melbourne? She’s straight off the showroom floor. Big and luxurious. Got the lot – radar, chart plotter, turbo donk – all mod cons. We’ll be stopping at Eden or Bermagui for a bit of R&R. There’ll just be four of us if you sign up. Come on, mate, it should be a doddle.’
Who can resist such temptations? A chance for a comfortable sea trial on one of the larger new Tupperware tubs was just too good to turn down. Work can always wait.
But it can also be dangerous making assumptions about any boat, especially a new one. Few things test all-round seaworthiness quicker than an ocean passage. Flaws of design, construction or fit-out will soon become evident; inadequate rigging and equipment ruthlessly exposed. The term ‘shakedown cruise’ is a landlubber’s euphemism. Friendly roadside service can be a tad hard to find if you suffer a serious breakdown at sea. Steve and I agreed to meet at the boat the following day to do a thorough inspection.
It was time well spent. The huge popularity of European factory-made yachts has put thousands of people into affordable sailing, but – at least as they’re supplied from the dealers – these boats are rarely set up for offshore work. Most were designed for the charter/cruising market and will spend their entire lives as flat-water daysailers. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but even a cursory scramble around our shining new ride soon revealed too many things that were lacking on a boat expected to do even overnight service at sea.
The list of its more obvious omissions was daunting: there were no storm sails, in fact no sails other than the main and jib already on the furler. Despite its generous beam, there were no central grab rails below. No lee cloths to stop us rolling about in our berths (all of which were doubles). No restraining strap to stop the cook – who was me – being hurled out of the galley. No extra sheets or lines of any kind or length. No sea anchor or drogue to slow us down in extreme weather. No winch-handle boots in the main cockpit or at the mast. No HF radio (but it did have a flat-screen TV and DVD). There were three separate heads, but no wet locker to hang our foul weather gear. Not to worry. Such minor irritations shouldn’t deter a mob of seasoned yachties. We wouldn’t be racing, after all, just doing a quiet little delivery down to Port Phillip. Famous last words.
Steve managed to borrow some basic safety and radio gear but there were still plenty of smaller items we needed to borrow or purchase from the local chandlery before we could set off that Friday evening. We yarned about the boat’s shortcomings with the shop assistant as he quilled the bill for our flares, bungs, hacksaw blades and spare batteries. After we’d mentioned the lack of any extra lines onboard he fumbled around beneath the counter, finally emerging with a handful of assorted short ends. ‘Here, fellas. You might as well have these. Not much use to us, but you never know when you might need a bit of spare light stuff.’ It was a simple act of seamanlike mateship. Just eighteen hours later that thoughtful gesture would help us save the boat.
As the crew assembled after work we all cursed the 25-plus knots of south-easterly that promised to make the delivery a long slog to windward. The Bureau of Meteorology was reporting three-metre swells at the wave-rider buoy off Botany Bay. Not so pleasant. ‘Let’s have some dinner and a couple of settling ales at the club. Then we’ll decide when to push off.’ It was a good call. By 2200 the southerly had eased a little and gone further east. We motored up Sydney Harbour into the lee of Watson’s Bay and began setting up the main for one reef – always a sensible configuration for delivery work in a stiffish breeze.
Immediately, we struck our first problem. Most cruising boats have a system of permanent lazy jacks and a mainsail bag along the boom that allows the sail to be quickly dropped and secured without the labour-intensive and sometimes dangerous process of ‘flaking’ and then securing the main with ties. But the jacks and bag had been incorrectly installed on this new boat, locking the reefing lines behind strong stitching and canvas. We had to carefully cut through that sailmaker’s mistake to free the first reefing line and then attempt, in darkness, a makeshift repair that held things together. Half an hour later we finally cleared the Heads and turned south with one reef, fiddling with the furler until the jib was roughly in balance. Next, as we tidied up the main, we discovered that the sail ties supplied with the boat were too big to pass through the tiny reefing-point eyelets. Brilliant. The first of the chandler’s short ends was promptly pressed into service as a brailing line. With the boat nicely heeled we began to romp along, making good miles as the crew settled into a comfortable ‘one on/three off’ watch rotation. But not for long.
‘All hands! All hands!’ At 0320, about four miles off Port Kembla, the off-watch rushed up the companionway to answer the helmsman’s anguished shout. ‘We’ve got big trouble, fellas. No steering!’ The twin wheels spun drunkenly as the boat turned slow circles, crash-gybing back and forth in the two-metre swell. There was a decidedly nasty crunching sound issuing from somewhere inside the stern. This could be serious strife.
We removed the access port for the emergency tiller to discover the top of the rudder-stock thrashing about wildly at least six inches below deck level. Whatever locking nut or ring had held the big spade in place was now nowhere to be seen. We wouldn’t be solving this problem quickly
.
Someone shone a torch down the hole. The top bearing was in place and apparently undamaged. That’s a start. In the darkness below we could see that the steering quadrant – still mounted on the rudder stock – was all that had stopped the whole assembly from dropping out of the boat. But that horrible grinding noise was the quadrant banging about violently with each wave as it tried to gouge a hole through the inside of the hull. The bottom bearing, where the stock exited the boat, was already taking a terrible pounding. If we couldn’t get this chaos under control quickly the quadrant would soon bash its way through the fibreglass and we’d start taking water.
Normally when the internal chain or wire mechanisms of a wheel steering system fail it’s a relatively simple matter to fit the emergency tiller that all boats carry. But when the rudder has dropped down into the boat there’s no way of attaching that tiller to the top of the stock. Serious strife indeed.
Stay calm, think logically. We were now only about four miles off Wollongong but in no immediate danger of being driven onto the rocks or foundering. Our first job was to simply settle the boat down. We furled the jib, centred the main and then streamed large buckets on mooring lines from both stern cleats. By adjusting the length of those lines and trimming the main it was possible to keep the big boat reasonably stable. It was now 0415. We clustered in the cockpit to consider our situation. Any type of jury-rigged top bearing was unlikely to hold the weight of the rudder, let alone the huge torsional loads if we ever got underway again. Everyone had plenty of offshore experience. One of us was even an engineer. There just had to be a solution. We decided to first try getting the whole rudder assembly back up into position before tackling the bigger issue of how to keep it there.