Construction Sections for AUSTRALIA II
Designer
Ben Lexcen
(1936 - 1988)
Date15 July 1981
Object numberANMS1543[328]
NamePlan
MediumInk on film
DimensionsOverall: 870 x 605
Copyright© Ben Lexcen
ClassificationsMaps, charts and plans
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds
DescriptionHull and deck ring-frame construction drawing by Ben Lexcen and his design team from 1981, for either the 12mR AUSTRALIA II or for CHALLENGE XII.
HistoryThe ‘America’s Cup’ was originally known as ‘The British ‘Royal Yacht Squadron £100 cup’ and offered as the prize for a yacht race around the Isle of Wight in 1851. The first race was won by the schooner yacht AMERICA owned by the group of members from The New York Yacht Club (NYYC). This syndicate donated the cup to the club and it was re-named "The America’s Cup" after the name of the yacht.
Following the end of World War II, in 1948, DeCoursey Fales, then commodore of the New York Yacht Club, held a meeting with Captain John Illingworth, commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, to discuss re-starting the Americas Cup races. With the very high-cost of building and running the large J Class racing yacht, they discussed using a new International Cruiser-Racer rating rule, but no agreement was made at the time. In 1956, the new Commodore of the NYYC, Henry Sears, met with the commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS), Sir Ralph Gore to further to investigate ways of reviving the America’s Cup races. After a good deal of debate, the 12mR Class was selected and future America Cup yachts would be built to the 12mR International Rule. The 12mR, and its international measurement rules, were used by the New York Yacht Club from 1958, continuing up to 1987.
Designed and tank tested by David Boyd, the first British 12mR challenge boat SCEPTRE was launched on April 2nd 1958 at Alexander Robertsons & Sons boatyard at Sandbank in Scotland. The yacht sailed against the American boat COLUMBIA in September 1958 but the challenge proved unsuccessful.
Australia’s quest for the coveted America’s Cup began in 1962 with the Alan Payne designed GRETEL (KA-1) for Sir Frank Packer. This was followed in 1966 with the Warwick J. Hood designed DAME PATTIE (KA-2), built by ‘William H. Barnett Pty. Ltd.’ for The America's Cup Challenger Syndicate, headed by Emil Christensen. For the next challenge, Sir Frank Packer had Alan Payne design ‘GRETEL II’ (KA-3) for the 1970 series. None of these challenges proved successful.
Charismatic Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond, began his quest for the America’s Cup during the early 1970’s using Ben Lexcen (then Bob Miller) as his chief designer. Their 1974 challenger SOUTHERN CROSS (KA-4) was not successful but they went on to design and build AUSTRALIA (KA-5) for the 1977 and 1980 races. During this period Ben Lexcen teamed up Johan Valentijn, a young but experienced Dutch naval architect, who had previously worked for ‘Sparkman & Stephens’ in the USA. Ben Lexcen and Johan Valentijn spent seven months in 1976 testing 1/9th scale models of ‘AUSTRALIA’ at the University of Delft test tank in the Netherlands.
Ben Lexcen redesigned AUSTRALIA (KA-5) for the 1980 Americas Cup races, which were held from September 16th to 25th at Newport Rhode Island. He also sailed as crew in all the races. During the elimination trials AUSTRALIA, captained by James Hardy, beat all the other challengers, FRANCE III, LIONHEART and SVERIGE, to race against the US yacht FREEDOM skippered by Dennis Conner.
The challenge by AUSTRALIA (KA-5) in 1980 was not successful, but the design work carried out by Ben Lexcen, and overall experience for the Australian team, proved a considerable help in the future design of AUSTRALIA II (KA-6), which started late 1980 early 1981. Ben Lexcen spent four months designing, building and water tank testing hull and keel shapes for the next Australian challenger in early 1981. Work continued for the remainder of the year on two yachts order by Alan Bond. One was CHALLENGE XII (KA-10), which had a more traditional ballast keel and underwater shape, and the other AUSTRALIA II (KA-6), a revolutionary design, with an inverted wing keel, shortest every waterline on a 12mR boat, reduced weight and beam, and with an advanced mast rigging and sails.
Both yachts were built in aluminium by Steve E. Ward & Co boatyard in Perth, Western Australia during 1982 from the construction design drawings made by Ben Lexcen and his team. Following the launch of AUSTRALIA II the yacht underwent sea-trials and crew training. In 1983 CHALLENGE XII (KA-10), was sold to the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria (AU), and sent to Newport for the challenger trails. AUSTRALIA II (KA-6), was shipped to the United Stated in the spring of 1983.
The America’s Cup trophy had been held by the NYYC, successfully defending twenty-four challenges for 132 years, until 1983, when the Australian yacht AUSTRALIA II (KA-6) designed by Ben Lexcen and skippered by John Bertram representing The Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia, beat the American yacht LIBERTY and won the cup for Australia.
Today, both AUSTRALIA II and CHALLENGE XII are in excellent condition and still active. AUSTRALIA II is on permanent display at the Western Australian Maritime Museum. In 2001 she was shipped to Cowes, Isle of Wight in the UK, for the 150th anniversary celebrations of the America's Cup. CHALLENGE XII (KA-10), owned by Jack Le Fort, still races, and won the 12mR world championship at Newport Rhode Island on August 6th. 2023. SignificanceThe construction drawings of the hull and deck frames for the aluminium 12mR Challenge yacht in 1981 show they were designed to comply to the Lloyds Construction rules for metal yachts, but also to save as much weight as possible. Each of the forty-eight hull frames differ slightly in dimension, indicating each was designed separately, rather than using the same general dimension for them all. This represents a considerable amount of work, but typical of the detail Ben Lexcen and his team used at the time.
