Motor yachtUnited States flag

Liberty

Moored in Palm Beach.

Signal 7 min ago 26.70435°N, 80.04492°W Destination Palm Beach

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Length28 m

Beam7.0 m

Draught1.8 m

FlagUnited States

Scale: 20 mIndicative profile

This is Liberty

Liberty (US-40) was an American racing yacht in the 12-metre class that unsuccessfully defended the 1983 America's Cup. After a competition with Defender and Courageous, Liberty was selected as the defender.

Background

Following the 1980 America's Cup where Freedom defeated Australia, the Freedom ’83 Defence Syndicate, whose fundraising was run through the Maritime College at the Fort Schuyler Foundation, decided to commission two new 12 metre yachts for the 1983 defence. Dennis Conner asked the designers to take risks so that the new boat would not simply be a refined version of Freedom, but rather a new design that broke through her. The first boat, Spirit of America (US-34), was designed by Bill Langan from Sparkman & Stephens. Langan described it as a "large, light twelve." The second boat, Magic (US-38), was designed by Johan Valentijn.

Design and construction

The initial proposal for the third boat was that Sparkman & Stephens and Johan Valentijn would collaborate to design a refined version of Freedom. Liberty was built by Newport Offshore and was delivered to the Freedom ’83 Syndicate in January 1983. Early results were mixed, but she was a clear improvement over Spirit of America and the Sparkman and Stephens’ boat was retired. By early spring 1983, it was clear some modifications were needed to improve Liberty’s performance. In particular, its seaway motion needed to be steadied and, in the process, make its performance in heavy winds comparable to Freedom’s. Three feet were cut from the boat’s stern and both the keel and rig were moved forward. The alterations worked.

Performance

Despite being the first US boat to lose the America’s Cup, Liberty was not a badly designed or poorly performing yacht. It clearly had the performance to be selected as the US defender, having comprehensively beaten Courageous (US-26). In doing so, Liberty demonstrated a versatile performance in winds ranging from seven to 17 knots. Against Australia II, a genuine ‘break-through’ design, Liberty won three races and arguably should have won the series but for two events. First, just prior to the crucial fifth race, when Liberty was leading Australia II by 3–1 and needed only one more race to win the cup, the US boat broke its jumper struts close to the top of the mast.