Ficker navigates full circle

ROGER CARLSON

The journey from an eight-foot Sabot to skippering a 12-meter boat

such as Intrepid to a victory in the America’s Cup is a long one in

one sense, and just around another wave in another.

For 12-year-old Tyler Macdonald of Newport Beach, the grandson of

one of sailing’s all-time figures, Bill Ficker, the hop, skip and

jump maneuver will take place Friday and Saturday in Newport, R.I.,

where he’ll be aboard in the Wall Street Regatta at Narragansett Bay.

Ficker, the first to sweep to the sport’s triple crown, winning

the International Star World Championship in 1958 in San Diego, the

America’s Cup aboard Intrepid at Newport, R.I. in 1970 and the

Congressional Cup at Long Beach in 1974, has retired from competitive

racing.

But his love for the sport and that special bond between

grandfather and grandson combines to create a unique opportunity.

“I’m having the time of my life,” Ficker said.

“We’ve already experienced some of that last summer when we went

to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame in Bristol, R.I. I want him to see

what the sport is all about,” Ficker continued. “It’s not just the

winning. Often people look at the winning and forget what the rest of

the sport contributes to your life.”

There would seem to be no one with better insight than Ficker,

whose winning ways dominated for decades after an introduction to the

sport in 1941 in a Sabot racing program in Newport Beach.

Tyler, a recent graduate of Lincoln Elementary headed for the

Corona del Mar High campus as a seventh-grader this fall, finds

himself in the same program, working his way through the classes,

from novice to the Cs and Bs.

It’s not often you’ll find Bill Ficker involved with competitive

racing, unless it’s something like the recent Hoag Hospital Regatta

here in Newport Beach, or the Wall Street Regatta, which benefits the

“Shake-A-Leg” group, involving spinal cord injuries.

“Once you’ve accomplished something you have a different

attitude,” Ficker said. “I was never in love with just being on a

boat. I liked the competition, the technology and organizing the

crew. That was more of my emphasis than simply sailing.”

At the Wall Street Regatta, Ficker and his crew will be in a short

series of races, most likely in the range of 6 to 12 miles each with

the emphasis on spectator-friendly courses with the start and finish

easily viewed.

“There’s a good possibility we’ll be sailing the Intrepid in at

least one of the races,” said Ficker, a past commodore at the Newport

Harbor Yacht Club.

There are 15 or so 12-meter boats privately owned in Rhode Island

and Ficker said most all of them have been restored to better

condition than they were 35 years ago when he kept America’s Cup in

America.

Tyler, said his grandfather, may well find himself taking up a

backstay winch or adjusting the “travelers,” a track that runs across

the boat at the end of the boom, which fine tunes the location of the

sail.

“He might help where he can,” Ficker said. “He’s had some

experience beyond Sabots.”

The nature of any race is to win, but Ficker discounts the value

of first place.

“It’s nice to see that the fraternity of yachting puts something

back into it,” he said. “People make an effort from different parts

of the country to make it a success. The Wall Street people put up

the money to make it possible and the people who own the boats make

them available for the race.

“It’s just a matter of people doing something for people who need

help. You’re not just out there sailing for yourself.”

There are few who can speak to the values of competing and winning

with more authority than Ficker.

Seventeen years after his initial start with the Sabots, he burst

upon the scene in 1958 when he won the International Star World

Championship in 1958 in a field which was generally considered to

have the best sailors in the world.

Still, in terms of those outside the sport, it would be the

America’s Cup that would propel Ficker to superstar status.

And with blue ribbon finishes at the Congressional Cup in 1974,

the Southern Ocean Racing Conference in 1973 and the Admiral’s Cup

Team in 1973, as well as many others, the quest for winning slowly

ebbed.

Ficker’s contributions to the sport go deep. He has brought

various innovations to the game, such as dual steering wheels, the

first computers aboard America’s Cup boats, asymmetric spinnakers,

the carbon fiber spinnaker pole and hydraulics aboard the 12-meter

boats.

For your average baseball fan and football lunatic, those items

may be head-scratchers. But in Ficker’s circles, each has made a big

impact on the sport. An accomplished lecturer on the subject, there’s

not much he hasn’t done, as a director, senior judge and chairman of

too many things to get into.

“The sport has been wonderful for me and my family,” Ficker said.

Which brings us full circle: Back to Tyler, who’ll get a firsthand

look at what his grandfather is talking about.

Oh, and the last time Ficker competed at Shake-A-Leg-Newport Wall

Street and Corporate Challenge Cup?

It was in 1999 and guess who won? Uh-huh. The buzz words after

that event were “Ficker is Still Quicker.”

The Ficker-Macdonald team departs on Wednesday in preparation for

the event that begins Friday, and will take in the sights of New York

City before returning July 16.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor of the Daily Pilot. He

can be reached by e-mail at rogeranddorothea@msn.com.