Glenn Bourke Interview - Pt1

3 time Laser World Champion, running the most successful Olympics ever, now illbruck, Glenn Bourke has done it all...

But he did find the time for another America's Cup campaign, in a bid to win back the Auld Mug which he had attempted to defend with Kookaburra back in ’87. "I was tactician for OneAustralia in 1995, on the incredible sinking America's Cup boat.

"I remember the strange feeling as the cockpit floor started welling up and down beneath our feet and it was pretty obvious the boat was going to go down." The sickening thing was that just a small change in construction could have made all the difference, just an extra 22 kilos, according to skipper John Bertrand.

Bourke concurs with that assessment. "I think what happened was the keel started to gallop fore and aft in the boat and none of the structure went through to the deck. The keel was held in a cassette box with quite strong athwartships bracing but minimal fore-and-aft bracing. As the boat hit a wave, the hull stopped and 22 tonnes of keel carried on. Eventually what happened was it probably broke the skin or the core just behind the keel and the tension of the runners just tore the thing in half. So very little extra structure would have been required to prevent that occurring."

Despite that tragic-comic moment, Bourke salvages some pride from the campaign. "I think we did a pretty stoic job of pulling out the old boat and smartening it up, changing a few things and eventually beating Team New Zealand in that single race that they were beaten in. I think all in all we did a good job - in the unfortunate circumstances of snapping a boat in half and sinking it in 550 feet of water!"

Not long afterwards, he was offered the opportunity of running the Olympic regatta in Sydney. "It was pretty appealing to me at that time, and that is the point where really I made the transition from professional sailor to professional administrator."

It was certainly being thrown in at the deep end, but Bourke loved it. "I guess I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to manage that programme, and that there was such a good support structure in the Sydney Games that I could learn on the job and be educated by some brilliant people.

"The aim was to put on a good event and I believe we did that. I think people look back on it as a sailor's games and not a bureaucrat's games, I had a wonderful team of people working with me, a kind of empathy and cameraderie that I've never felt before, and that empathy drove us to achieve the best we could.

"I think we understood what the priorities of the sailors were, and where we could change things we would, and where we were locked into things governed by Olympic protocol we did our best to make that clear to the sailors. It was just a good and open feeling among the organisers and the sailing community."

Continued on page 3...

The Volvo press, including our own John Greenland (centre), descend upon Bourke.