John Bertrand: The Alan Bond I knew

A pocket-rocket of a man.

That is the person I saw when I first met Alan Bond in Sydney( after returning from a fourth placing in the 1972 Munich Olympics. I had just taken up the role as assistant designer to Ben Lexcen for Alan’s first America’s Cup challenge and he was only 34 years old at the time.

In front of me was a man with huge energy and matching ambition and he knew the magnitude of taking on the Americans to win the America’s Cup.

John Bertrand, left, and Alan Bond meet President Reagan at the White House after their America's Cup triumph in 1983.

He didn’t necessarily know much about the America’s Cup then but he seemed to intuitively know how hard it would be to exact out the mission. And he grew in his knowledge very rapidly.

In 1974, he was all over the project and by 1983 he knew enough to know what he didn’t know before and that was extremely important from my perspective.

Hero or rogue, Bond put WA on map

So Alan took on the America’s Cup challenge in 1974, then he came back in 1977 and again in 1980,
being defeated each time.

But the thing that came out of that was this incredible resilience and can-do attitude of never giving up. What he did on top of that was give us the continuity to build the resources, to build the knowledge and build the technology while bringing in the right people to take on the Americans at their own game in 1983.

ALAN BOND - A LIFE IN PICTURES

Alan Bond with the famous boxing kangaroo

Bond lifted nation's spirit:Hawke

That continuity over a 10-year period was vital in our ability to ultimately beat them.
Alan’s attitude was also infectious among our whole team.

People said it was impossible to win the America’s Cup and most people in their right mind would have had to agree because no other nation had won in 130-odd years of competition.

But Alan had this incredible resilience and positive frame of mind and he was just so great in terms of leadership.

With the America's Cup in 1983

During the final stages of the chase for the cup, Alan and Warren Jones would talk to the team over breakfast, then I would take over on the tow out to the start line for each race .(.(. the combination was extremely good.

Coming from 3-1 down was a huge climb from oblivion, which in hindsight was a big part of the reason why this country’s imagination was captured.

It represented, in many ways, the Anzac spirit of emerging strongly from a backs-to-the-wall, impossible situation.

Former premier Brian Burke said the America's Cup would be Mr Bond's legacy.

We were dealing with an extreme level of high performance and while working in a very rarefied atmosphere, Alan gave me the support where and when it really counted. The main part of that support was his unwavering confidence in me to lead the team and that was a massive key that I felt was vital. It’s when you feel that you’re losing the support of the chairman of the board, then you’re in a very difficult position and I never felt like I was there.

The magnitude of the event and having people marching to the same tune was fundamental to the strength of our organisation.

Even when we felt like we’d done everything we could, Alan always helped us feel that we just had to keep going, regardless of the odds.

Alan Bond leaves Wooroloo prison. Picture John Mokrzycki/The West Australian

He was also persuasive. I’d been involved in the 1974 effort when the boat was slow, based on an extreme view of design. I wasn’t involved in 1977, but then 1980 was full of experiment, again. In 1983, I felt that if we had equal equipment to the Americans then we could get the job done.

Then came the winged keel, way out there from left-field. From my perspective, the question was how much of a gamble it was. But the conclusion was that we had to build the boat because the potential was so intriguing.

When we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our victory in a motorcade around the MCG on AFL grand final day in 2003, there was controversy surrounding Alan’s involvement. But he had every right to be with us that day.

There was never any confusion within our group about us all being part of a very tight team. He always was, and is in terms of his memory, a lifelong friend and mate of the Australia II program because we were all in it together.

Alan Bond at his home in Cottesloe in 2013. Picture: Ian Munro/The West Australian

We went to hell and back, but we were able to get the job done. In the end, that solidarity was why the Americans couldn’t kill off the Australia II team.

The inner strength of the organisation was extreme.

Alan certainly polarised people and we all understand that. Some people see him in terms of the America’s Cup and the celebration of a nation and others look at the collapse of his business empire and rightly have their own thoughts on it.

Many people have different views on Alan, I look at him through the lens of the America’s Cup and I see someone who hung in there and gave us the facilities to create sporting history.

He and I often had strong debate, but in overview, he was an amazing individual who should be remembered as an important part of the history of this country and the world of sport. It is with both fondness and sadness, particularly today, that I think of the people we have now lost from our organisation, including Warren Jones, Ben Lexcen and now Alan.

They were incredible individuals who made things happen and it underscores the theory that we’re only here for three-score and 10 in the old language and that we’re not going to be (doing this forever.

I last saw Alan a year and a half ago in Sydney when he had come back from London for the 30th( anniversary of our great win.

I will always remember seeing his sense of contentment among the boys there .(.(. he just loved( being involved with the team.

I just felt the man — and all of us, for that matter — was able to truly reflect on the magnitude of what we had achieved, the fact that we were part of sporting folklore in Australia and how privileged we were for that.

The America’s Cup win is still seen as one of the great sporting highlights of Australia. We are, as a team, and Alan was, as an individual, very proud of that. I will always feel a great sense of