Chris Dickson (sailor)
Encyclopedia
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, is an internationally known sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
from New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. He was world youth champion three years in succession and later became world match race
World Match Racing Tour
The World Match Racing Tour is a professional sailing series, featuring 9 World Championship events across the globe, sanctioned by the International Sailing Federation with “Special Event” status...
champion three times. He also skippered several yachts in America's Cup
America's Cup
The America’s Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging...
racing, and for New Zealand at the 2000 Summer Olympics
New Zealand at the 2000 Summer Olympics
New Zealand competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.The New Zealand Olympic Committee was represented by 151 athletes and 100 officials.- Bronze:*Mark Todd — Equestrian, Three-Day Event Individual Competition...
, and in numerous other sailing competitions.
As skipper of Tokio he looked set to win the W60 class in the 1993-94 Whitbread Round the World race until the boat was dismasted in the fifth leg. He also skippered Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, one of the world's leading enterprise software companies. As of 2011, he is the third wealthiest American citizen, with an estimated worth of $33 billion.- Early life :Larry Ellison was born in the...
's 78 foot maxi yacht
Maxi yacht
A maxi yacht usually refers to a racing sailboat of at least in length. It is also a Swedish brand of smaller sailing yachts.-Origin:The term maxi originated with the International Offshore Rule rating system, which in the 1970s and 1980s measured offshore racing yachts and applied a...
Sayonara to line honours in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, starting in Sydney, Australia on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart. The race distance is approximately...
and in four world championship regattas.
Early sailing career
Dickson sailed from an early age, starting out in the SabotSabot (dinghy)
The Sabot is a sailing dinghy that is sailed and raced singlehandedly usually by young sailors in various places around the world.It is a hard-chine pram 8 feet in length with a maximum width of 3'11" . The Sabot is equipped with a dagger board and a 36 square-foot Bermuda-rigged sail...
and P Class
P-class yacht
The P-Class is a type of small single sail dinghy, popular as a training boat for young people in New Zealand. This class is famous for being the sailing trainer vessel for many new entrants into the sport, and virtually every famous New Zealand yachtsman, including Sir Peter Blake and Russell...
boats, before graduating to Laser
Laser (dinghy)
The International Laser Class sailboat, also called Laser Standard and the Laser One is a popular one-design class of small sailing dinghy. According the Laser Class Rules the boat may be sailed by either one or two people, though it is rarely sailed by two. The design, by Bruce Kirby, emphasizes...
s and 470
470 (dinghy)
The 470 is a double-handed monohull planing dinghy with a centreboard, Bermuda rig, and centre sheeting. The name is the overall length of the boat in centimetres . The hull is fibreglass with integral buoyancy tanks. The 470 is equipped with spinnaker and trapeze, making teamwork necessary to...
s. In 1977 he won both the Tanner Cup
Tanner Cup
The Tanner Cup is a New Zealand sailing competition sailed annually. It is sailed in P Class yachts. It is an Inter-Provincial Competition with one sailor from each region competing. It was first sailed in 1945. Many of New Zealands top sailors have competed in and won the Tanner Cup. Previous...
and Tauranga Cup
Tauranga Cup
The Tauranga Cup is an annual New Zealand sailing competition for P Class dinghies which began in 1940. Many of New Zealand's top sailors have won the Tanner Cup, including Dean Barker, Chris Dickson and Leslie Egnot. The Tauranga Cup is closely related to the Tanner Cup. The competition is named...
for P Class events with a perfect zero points score in both. These events were subsequently won by other noted New Zealand skippers, Russell Coutts
Russell Coutts
Sir Russell Coutts, KNZM, CBE is a competitive sailor. His achievements include a Gold medal in the Finn Class in the 1984 Olympic Games, winning the America's Cup four times, the ISAF World Youth championships, three World Match Racing Championships, numerous international match race wins and...
(1978) and Dean Barker (1988). By the time he turned 15 he had won every regatta possible, from match racing between clubs to provincial and national championships.
Youth world champion
The year after his Tanner-Tauranga cups double, Dickson won the first of his three ISAF Youth World ChampionshipsInternational Sailing Federation
The International Sailing Federation is recognised by the International Olympic Committee as the world governing body for the sport of sailing....
, with David McKay in the 420 at Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
. He won again the following year in the 420
at Livorno
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
with his high school class mate Hamish Wilcox , and again the following year (1980) at Fort Worth, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
in the Laser 11 with Sean Reeves.
Olympic Games
Selected in the New Zealand team as reserve for the 1980 summer Olympics in Russia. At the 2000 Olympic GamesNew Zealand at the 2000 Summer Olympics
New Zealand competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.The New Zealand Olympic Committee was represented by 151 athletes and 100 officials.- Bronze:*Mark Todd — Equestrian, Three-Day Event Individual Competition...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Dickson and crewmate Glen Sowry sailed well in the Tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
catamaran
Catamaran
A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...
but finished fifth overall after recording two results outside the top 10, (fifteenth in Race 4 and twelfth in Race 12).
America's Cup
Dickson appeared on the America's CupAmerica's Cup
The America’s Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging...
scene in 1987 when he was skipper of New Zealand’s first America's Cup challenge KZ 7
KZ 7
New Zealand "Kiwi Magic" was the America's Cup challenge boat sailed by Chris Dickson in the Louis Vuitton Cup Challenger series held in Gage Roads off Fremantle, Australia during the summer months of 1986 through 1987...
in the 1987 America's Cup
1987 America's Cup
The 1987 America's Cup was the twenty-seventh challenge for the America's Cup and the first time for 132 years that it had not been defended by the New York Yacht Club....
at Fremantle
Fremantle
Freemantle is a suburb of Southampton in England.Fremantle or Freemantle may also refer to:- Places :* Fremantle, the port city to the capital Perth, Western Australia...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. He was beaten that year by the eventual winner Dennis Conner
Dennis Conner
Dennis Conner is an American yachtsman, noted for winning the bronze medal at the 1976 Olympics, two Star World Championships, and four wins in the America's Cup.-America's Cup:...
and Stars & Stripes 87
Stars & Stripes 87
Stars & Stripes 87 was the 12 Meter challenge boat sailed by Dennis Conner in his bid to reclaim the America’s Cup from the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia in 1987.-Design and Development:...
in the Louis Vuitton Cup
1987 Louis Vuitton Cup
The 2nd Louis Vuitton Cup was held in Fremantle, Australia in 1987. The winner, Stars & Stripes, went on to challenge for and win the 1987 America's Cup.-The teams:...
Final after winning 33 of 34 races in the round-robin phases and sweeping French Kiss 4-0 in the semi-finals.
Since 1987, Dickson has been prominent in the international sailing world, particularly around the America's Cup.
- 1987: skipper of Kiwi Magic (KZ 7), challenger entrant, finished second in the Louis Vuitton Cup
- 1992: skipper of Nippon (JPN 26), challenger entrant, finished third in the Louis Vuitton Cup
- 1995: Owner and skipper of Tag Heuer (NZL 39), challenger entrant, finished third in the Louis Vuitton Cup
- 2003: skipper of Oracle BMW Racing (USA 76), challenger entrant, finished second in the Louis Vuitton Cup
- 2006/2007: CEO and skipper of BMW Oracle RacingBMW Oracle RacingOracle Racing is an American sailboat racing syndicate initially formed to compete for the 2003 America’s Cup. They competed again in the 2007 event before winning the 33rd America's Cup regatta in 2010 - representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club....
, challenger of record for the 2007 America's Cup2007 America's CupThe 2007 America's Cup was the thirty-second challenge for the America's Cup and was won by Alinghi in the 7th race. The Cup is the most famous and most prestigious regatta and Match Race in the sport of sailing....
The 2007 America's Cup was a bad experience for Dickson, who by this time had become one of the highest paid sailors in the world. He resigned his position as CEO of BMW Oracle Racing because of a devastating 1-5 loss in the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup at the hands of semi-finals opponent Luna Rossa Challenge
Luna Rossa Challenge
Luna Rossa Challenge is an Italian sailboat racing syndicate, created to compete for the 2000 America's CupSponsored by Prada, and beginning from 2005 also by Telecom Italia.-2000 Louis Vuitton Cup:...
. Luna Rossa's helmsman James Spithill
James Spithill
James Spithill is an Australian yachtsman. He was born in Sydney.After some junior match race titles, in 1998 he arrived third in the Sydney-Hobart and first in the Kenwood Cup....
dominated the veteran Dickson in all the pre-starts.
In race 5, Dickson incurred two penalties during the pre-start and was ordered to stand down for race 6. Five days later, Dickson resigned from the team, saying it was time for him to "step aside" and for the team "to move on". Software billionaire Larry Ellison, the owner of the BMW Oracle team, subsequently officially announced his intentions to launch a challenge for the 33rd America's Cup
America's Cup (33rd edition)
The 33rd America's Cup between Société Nautique de Genève defending with team Alinghi against Golden Gate Yacht Club, and their racing team BMW Oracle Racing was the subject of extensive court action and litigation, surpassing in acrimony even the controversial 1988 America's Cup...
.
Family life
Dickson and his wife, Sue, and two young children live in Auckland, and he has become less active in competitive sailing.Current Sailing
After a two year absence from racing, Dickson returned to competitive sailing in 2009 as helmsman of Vincitore, finishing 1st in class and 1st overall at the IRC San Francisco Big Boat Series. He also acted as tactician on Full Metal Jacket in the China Sea Regatta (Hong Kong), finishing in second place. He continued to act as tactician on Full Metal Jacket at the Kings Cup (Phuket), finishing in fourth place and then was skipper in the New Zealand Match Racing Championships competing with a youth crew and finishing third.External links
- http://www.sailinganarchy.com/innerview/2003/chrisdickson.htm