The considerable advantage that the New York Yacht Club had exerted on the Cup since it first defended with a fleet of yachts on home waters in New York against the railway heir James Ashbury in 1870 was, by the 1960’s, beginning to erode.
A memorandum in 1962 had declared that if multiple challenges were received within 30 days of a successful defence that they would be ‘received simultaneously.’
The fact that the Australians and British came to a gentleman’s agreement in 1964 precluded multiple challengers from entering that year and in 1967, despite a non-starting entry from the French, two rather mis-matched Australian boats vied for the challenger slot and only one, Dame Pattie, arrived in Newport.
