The spectacular life and high-achieving times of Ted Turner (1938-2026) have become deeply interwoven with the folklore of international sailing and the tales of the global media and communications industry. So much so, in fact, that after his death at the age of 87, it’s difficult to be sure whether you’ve become aware of some spectacular episode at third or fourth hand, or maybe were in the Turner neighbourhood at the time.
The man’s energy and breadth of vision were prodigious. Yet while he was undoubtedly the charismatic leader and pace-setter in any group with which he was involved, he seemed to prefer being in a compact and highly-talented setup in which he could be just one of the gang, and would only become the primus inter pares if a final decision was proving slow to emerge.
VARIED EARLY BOATS
In his college days and through the years close afterwards, he included boats as various as the the ultra-simple Penguin Class, the Lightning, and the Olympic Flying Dutchman in the long and varied list of craft in which he eventually achieved success to a high level, even while adjusting to becoming the boss of the family’s debt-laden Atlanta-based billboard conglomerate at the age of 24 in 1962.
Ted Turner came from a non-sailing family, and his earliest accident-prone experience afloat was largely self-taught with the ultra-simple Penguin
He was soon in the process of expanding it by moving into broadcasting with the acquisition of a television station, but it seemed that the busier he became ashore, the more he wanted to achieve afloat.
SORC SUCCESS
The multiple factors involved in offshore racing were a particular attraction, and when the Southern Ocean Racing Conference was still in being and staged in 1966 with a series of races between Florida and Cuba before Castro’s rule became total, he won at the finish in Havana with a chartered boat, and then set the tone for future post-race celebrations with an exuberant post-race party that was thought something special even by the Cuban standards of the day.
But it was when he decided that the 1964 Bill Luders-designed America’s Cup 12 Metre American Eagle would make for an interesting offshore racer that he began to acquire fascinated recognition on the world sailing scene.
American Eagle being prepared for the 1969 Transatlantic Race to Cork. Even by 12 Metre standards she was a notably fine-lined boat, yet when push came to shove offshore, she was well able for it.
THE BOY COMES TO CORK
It was the distinctively red Eagle that brought him to Cork in the west-east Transatlantic Race of 1969. Though the winner was Huey Long’s 73ft Britton Chance-designed Ondine with Jim Kilroy’s S&S-designed maxi Kialoa second, American Eagle was third under the CCA Rule, and would have won if the new about-to-happen International Offshore Rule had been applied.
As it is, American Eagle was soon on her way to Cowes, and in the lightish 1969 Fastnet, she made hay, taking third in Class I, fourth overall, and first overall in the Beta Division.
American Eagle racing in Cowes Week 1969. Particularly when set against the average conservatively-rigged British offshore racers of the time, with her enormous rig she seemed like something from another planet or galaxy. Photo: W M Nixon
THE SUBMARINE ROCKET
American Eagle seemed like something from another planet or galaxy, with this huge rig on only the merest slip of a boat by comparison with her hefty rivals. But provided her crew could live with being pounded often by spray, and sometimes by very solid water at sea, the Turner team had ensured she could be made as watertight as a submarine, and went like a rocket.
FITTING THE NEW IOR
As for her rig with its enormous mainsail, this seemed at variance with much received opinion. With previous rating rules such as that of the RORC, mainsail area was so punished that the quickest way to reduce your given rating was simply to chop off some of the mainsail.
But Turner and his team saw that the IOR was shaped differently, and even if American Eagle’s mainsail was often reefed right down to the hounds when slugging to windward offshore, its benefits in more benign conditions justified its existence. By the standards of the early 1970s, American Eagle seemed to power her way effortlessly through fleets large and small, and her success in the 1971 Fastnet – setting a new course record for good measure – was memorable.
The much-loved red-hulled American Eagle may no longer race offshore, but she has found a new life racing and sailing with the Classic 12 Metre fleet in Maine.
ONE TON WORLDS, INT 5.5 METRE CLASS GOLD CUP
This was done shortly after winning the One Ton Worlds in a 37ft Sparkman & Stephens design which went on to become the prototype for the Swan 37, while the 1971 season also saw him winning the Gold Cup in the International 5.5 Metre Class. In addition, he was to win the Congressional Cup in California in an expanding sailing career.
The Sydney-Hobart Race called, and in December 1972 American Eagle took on the challenge. Being a course that has a reputation for increasing roughness as the race progresses, the armchair admirals reckoned this would lead to Turner’s come-uppance. But although American Eagle closed in on the finish fighting hard on the wind with the main reefed right down, she stayed in one piece, and added another overall win.
American Eagle in the approaches to Hobart, on her way to winning the 1972 Sydney-Hobart Race Race overall, her final deep sea challenge.
GOLDEN JUBILEE FASTNET 1975
Nevertheless when Ted Turner and his squad of all the talents returned to Europe for the Golden Jubilee Fastnet Race in 1975, it was with the super-strong 61ft alloy-built Tenacious, a Sparkman & Stephens design originally called Dora and created in 1972 for an owner on the Great Lakes, where the fresh water encouraged the development of boat-building in aluminium.
While the Centenary Fastnet of 2025 with its finish in Cherbourg was an acknowledgement of the new reality in international offshore racing numbers, the Golden Jubilee Fastnet of 1975 with its traditional finish in Plymouth was a salute to the past. Nevertheless Class 1 with its entry of 79 boats in a global lineup attracted much major talent, and in the homely surroundings of Millbay Dock in Plymouth post-race, Ted Hood (back to camera) is shooting the breeze with Dennis Conner and Ted Turner. Two years later in 1977, Turner was to defeat Hood for the honour of successfully defending the America’s Cup, which he did with style, racing the 1974 boat Courageous. Photo: W M Nixon
PIPPED AT THE POST
Racing in the very impressive 79-strong Class 1 in a mostly light wind 1975 Fastnet Race, Tenacious was welcomed with mixed feelings by the crew of Otto Glaser’s 47ft Tritsch-Tratsch II from Howth. Both boats were glad enough to get into the top ten in such a fleet at the finish, but Tenacious pipped Tritsch-Tratsch II by one minute and 53 seconds for eighth place.
Ouch! The first 12 places in the record-fleet Class 1 in 1975’s Golden Jubilee Fastnet Race
For 1977, Turner focused on the America’s Cup defence at Newport, Rhode Island, and bought the successful 1974 defender, the S&S and Dave Pedrick-designed alloy-built Courageous, which had been Ted Hood’s winning boat back in ’74. The powers-that-be expected that Ted Hood with his new boat Independence would emerge successfully from the defender trials, but Turner proved them wrong and then went on with Courageous to defeat the New Zealand challenger and hold the cup.
LAST AMERICA’S CUP SUCCESS FOR A PRIVATE OWNER-SKIPPER
It was to be the last time a private owner-skipper would win the America’s Cup, and it was assumed that this would become the pinnacle of Ted Turner’s sailing career. But two years later, his biennial campaign with Tenacious in the Fastnet Race provided an awe-inspiring alternative.
Ted Turner as the international sports world best knew him, helming Courageous to America’s Cup victory in 1977
THE 1979 FASTNET AND ITS STORM
Light winds were not what the 1979 Fastnet Race is remembered for, yet even though conditions were gentle enough headed west, there was a feeling it was all being dampened down by relentless drumming rain, and a couple of hours after Tenacious rounded the Rock, the growing storm struck with remarkable rapidity, even though she was heading away from its centre.
Tenacious arrives in the afternoon at the Fastnet in 1979’s Race in deceptively moderate conditions, yet before dawn the following day the storm had struc in all its ferocity. Photo: Cork Examiner
As news came over the radio of boats now well astern in fatal difficulty as she roared along, Tenacious was flattened by a mighty breaker that stretched the lines and filled her reefed main into a huge bag of water, such that she was on her ear and difficult to handle.
Tenacious racing. Her rig was noted for its exceptional height.
The skipper had been grabbing some rest in his bunk next to the companionway, and heard the desperate suggestion from one of the battered crew in the cockpit that maybe they should stick a knife through the sail to release the water and regain control.
INSPIRATION
He erupted on deck, and in the howling gale and crashing seas, gave a performance reminiscent of Laurence Olivier as Henry V at Agincourt:
“We know there are people back there drowning, but they’re upwind and too far away for us to do anything to help them in these conditions. We know this great race is going to go on, and it’s a mark of respect to continue to the finish as fast as we can, for we’ve the boat to do it. So right now we’re gonna take out that lousy reef, and we’re gonna race like hell for Plymouth”.
On the wings of the storm…..Going hell for leather, aboard the revived Tenacious racing for Plymouth, and making many knots fo speed and overall victory.
At the finish, the sheer scale of the disaster that was happening was still being grasped when Tenacious came sweeping in and crossed the line at Plymouth Breakwater with a corrected time that put her ahead of the few bigger boats that had finished ahead. As the hours went past, her time became unassailable, and we arrived into the Royal Western at Plymouth on that memorable afternoon to find an element of mayhem, with shoeless rescued crew mingling with those who had succeeding in finishing or had retired.
STEAMING AHEAD
Through the middle of it there moved the unmistakable figure of Ted Turner, steaming ahead with a giant cigar to clear the way, and telling anyone who would listen that he didn’t understand why the Limeys were complaining about the weather, ’cos if it hadn’t been for weather like that, they’d all be speaking Spanish.
The mood in the RWYC was so off the wall that after a full dose of it, my mate and I sought shelter up the hill in the capacious if soul-less bar of the Post House Hotel. It mercifully contained only two people, but as one was Ted Turner and the other the guy delegated by the Tenacious crew to be his minder as he milled his way through any hooch available while still grasping at the enormity of what he had achieved, this had the potential to be a war zone.
I knew the minder only vaguely, but he greeted the pair of us like long-lost friends:
“Your turn, guys. I’ll be back in ten minutes”
So we got talking exclusively to Ted Turner shortly after he’d been declared the winner of the most memorable Fastnet Race ever, but by this stage he’d become obsessive about trysails in storm conditions.
“Ya gotta have a trysail” he kept repeating, which subsequently seemed odd, as Tenacious got herself well placed by hanging onto full main and going for it. And as far as I remember, Donal McClement won Class IV in Fastnet 79 by getting the UFO 34 Black Arrow to go fast enough under storm jib only in order to keep up with his successful intention of going straight through waves, rather than have them overpower him.
But anyway, even out of his mind and speaking from a position of temporary repose flat on his back on the lurid carpet of the Post House bar, there’s no doubting Ted Turner was the real deal, the Mouth of the South, the Force of Nature, the Victor of Fastnet Storms, something very special indeed.
NO EASING UP IN THE TURNER PACE
Anybody remotely normal would surely have eased the foot on the pedal after winning both the America’s Cup and the most heroic Fastnet Race ever, all within the short space of two years. But he’d barely got back to America before he set the latest project in action with so much dedication that he was grabbing any sleep on a couch in his office in Atlanta. And it was there on June 1st 1980 that his pet broadcast project of CNN was launched, just nine and a half months after his mighty Fastnet win.
A long way from the stormy Fastnet, Atlanta, Georgia, where ted Turner launched the ultra-pioneering CNN on June 1st 1980, just nine months after his heroic verl victory in the 1979 Fastnet Race. Photo: Facebook
This has meant that in 1980, Ted Turner became a media mogul first, and a sportsman second. A wider world got to know of his pithy judgements in an exaggerated southern drawl, for although he’d been born in Ohio, a boyhood family move to Atlanta, Georgia resulted in an obsession with the Confederate South, such that he became a sort of seagoing version of Rhett Butler of “Gone With The Wind”.
THE MARINER JUDGMENT
This was almost caricatured when the eccentric MIT Professor Britton Chance persuaded some supporters that a 12 Metre with an underbody chopped off at the stern could be designed such that the hull fooled the sea into thinking that it was longer and more normally shaped than was actually the case, and so the weird but not wonderful Mariner took to the water, and failed to shine.
Eventually Ted Turner was persuaded to sail her, and though at times he managed to make it look as though Mariner was at the races, there weren’t enough of those times, and only Britton Chance remained convinced that he was on the right track.
Britty’s Brainstorm. You might well think that the aft end of the Britton Chance-designed 12 Metre Mariner was finishing in a sharp trailing edge. But in fact it finished with a sort of quite extensive flat triangle athwartships, a setup which the Professor was convinced could somehow fool the passing sea into thinking that the boat was much longer than she actually was.
So after a day’s frustrating racing, Mariner was sent to be lifted out in the hoist while Turner fortified himself in the club to be ready for a session of ear-bending with the nutty Prof, and the pair of them strolled along to the very visible boat with drinks and cigars.
Britton Chance gave a superb exposition, while Turner stayed silent. Then when a pause came, Turner removed his cigar and drawled his response:
“Britty” said he, “Britty, even a turd ends in a point”.
GENEROSITY
With his rapidly growing resources, Ted Turner’s generosity and thirst for land advanced in tandem. He ended up owning two million acres, mostly in Montana, but equally he gifted one billion dollars to the United Nations to focus a fund for global environmental protection.
With a view to environmental protection, he ended by owning two million acres of America, most of it – as here – in Montana. Photo: Facebook
“ROMANTIC, SWASHBUCKLIN PIRATE”
His private life simply wasn’t private, and the whole world knew that he swept Hollywood star Jane Fonda into his arms for ten turbulent years of marriage simply by making her laugh, and by being, in her words, “a romantic, swashbuckling pirate”.
He was too busy living with his other interests to ensure that CNN managed to preserve its rugged independence, but even so at his death his fortune remained at several billion dollars, and his restless spirit was assuaged by knowing that he’d 28 different globally-spread houses that he could call home.
The world would be absolutely unlivable if there were more than a half dozen Ted Turners meteorites circling it at any one time. But it certainly becomes much more interesting when one of this calibre blazes so spectacularly across our skies. His contribution to world sailing is beyond measure.
Ted Turner & Jane Fonda in Cowes in 1991 for the 140th Anniversary celebrations of the America’s Cup. Photo: Facebook
