John Bertrand (AUS)
There may be two sailors with the name John Bertrand in Sailing World's
Hall of Fame, but only one brought the New York YC to its knees, ending
the longest winning streak in sport. Bertrand (b. 1946), born near
Melbourne, Australia, started out sailing Sabot prams on Port Philip
Bay's Chelsea YC. "I just enjoyed watching the bubbles go past the
gunnel," he says. But he soon flourished as a club racer and was a
national dinghy champion when Sir James Hardy invited him to trim
aboard Gretel II.After his first (of four) America's Cup
challenges, Bertrand studied Naval Architecture at MIT under Jerry
Milgram, "a brilliant, crazy man," says Bertrand. The professor not
only introduced him to advanced flow theory, but also to tactical
dinghy sailing. "At the MIT sailing club and in Marblehead," says
Bertrand, "I discovered the intense joys of match racing and North
American dinghy sailing." He also met Robbie Doyle, who got him into
the Finn and the '71 Gold Cup in Toronto. Bertrand finished eighth of
110 in a borrowed MIT boat and finished second the next year. But at
the '72 Olympics in Kiel, Germany, in fickle winds he met
disappointment. "I won the leather medal, fourth place," he says.Bertrand
then put his MIT degree to work, helping Ben Lexcen design Southern
Cross. "Afterwards I swore I'd never do another Cup," he says, and went
to Pewaukee, Wisc., to learn sailmaking from Peter Barrett. He also
worked with Olaf and Peter Harken to develop Vanguard's first Finn.
"Buddy Melges," he says, "was most influential in terms of pure
sailing," but he credits his mentors for showing a "boy from Chelsea
how the world worked."Bertrand won a bronze in '76 behind
Jochen Schuemann, and says he realized afterwards that the difference
between gold and bronze was "what was between the ears-the mental
state." He says in the Cup, seven years later, "at 3-1 down, the
consequences of winning or losing were huge, and I remembered how cool
Schuemann. That was fundamental to coming back from the abyss."Although
he got out of sailing for 10 years, the Etchells class lured Bertrand
back and he's continuing his old ways of winning; at one point he was
ranked No. 2 in the world. Bertrand also co-founded Quokka Sports,
which set early standards for web coverage of sailing and other events. Sailing World conducted an interview with John Bertrand shortly after his induction into the Hall of Fame-to read, click here
