America's Cup: 50 years ago this week, Bus Mosbacher on the cover of Time Magazine

NEW YORK – As an interest in sailing spread throughout the U.S.—well, at least to those places with access to water—TIME caught up with the man leading the charge: "Bus" Mosbacher, who was about to race for the America's Cup, "the closest thing to a Holy Grail in sport." The contest had been going on for more than a century, the cover story explained: The contest, not the old Victorian silver ewer, is the thing. In the demands it makes on boat and man, it is the ultimate, the very pinnacle in yachting. What started 116 years ago as a gentlemen's lark, has become a proving ground for technocrats, a vast public spectacle, an affair of national pride, purpose and prestige that so far has cost the competitors, winners and losers combined, an estimated $50 million—with no guarantees on the investment except that somebody would win and somebody else would lose. –Lily Rothman writing for Time Magazine's "This Week in History." Full story. The more interesting question today – why was there "an interest in sailing" spreading throughout the USA in 1967? Or the perception that there was? Your Ed. has some ideas, which we will discuss here on the pages of SAILING ILLUSTRATED in future weeks.