Britton Chance Jr. (June 12, 1940 – October 12, 2012) was an American naval architect who developed core elements of three yachts that won the America's Cup and won the World Championship six times. The New York Times said he "was known for having a mathematician's precision and a renegade's willingness to experiment". Professional Boatbuilder called him "one of the brightest minds in yacht design".Britton Chance Jr: 1940-2012. (2013). Professional Boatbuilder, 141, 14. via EBSCO, accessed April 20, 2022
Early life Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chance was the son of Jane Earle and Britton Chance, a biophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania who won a gold medal in sailing at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Raised in Mantoloking, New Jersey, he frequently sailed in Barnegat Bay and developed an early interest making boats that could go faster. Chance said, "I started racing and sailing at Manotoloking on my own by the time I was eight. My first boat was a Barnegat Bay Sneakbox—then I had a duckbox, Moth, and another sneakbox, penguins, and finally Class E scows."
In 1955, he started sailing in International 5.5 Meter competitions. In 1956, he came in second place in the East Coast Championship Penguin Regatta, junior division. In July 1957, he competed at the Barnegat Bay Yacht Race Association's Championship Regatta, winning the Atkinson Cup for his first-place finish with Complex II in the E Sloop class; he also came in first place in the Penguin class with Small Chance. Also in 1957, he won the South River Yacht Club Regatta.
Chance attended the Episcopal Academy near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was fifteen, he took the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology's home-study course in ship design. He then attended the University of Rochester where he studied physics for three years. He also attended Columbia University where he studied mathematics. However, he never earned a degree.Weber, Bruce. "Britton Chance Jr., Designer of America's Cup Boats, Dies at 72", The New York Times, October 18, 2012. Accessed November 4, 2012.
Sailing Chance competed in both the America's Cup trials and the Olympic trials. In 1960, he participated in the 5.5-meter class Olympic trials with the ship Complex III and teammates Ed O'Malley and Runnie Colie, who was the captain. They "narrowly missed Olympic nomination".
In 1962, he was a crewman on the Easterner, a contender for America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club. That same year, he was part of the syndicate backing the Columbia as a contender in America's Cup trials.
In the summer of 1962, he was a crewman on the Columbia, preparing for the Olympic trials. In September 1962, he won first place twice in the Olympic trials for the 5.5-meter class. However, he did not make the team. In 1964, he came in second place overall in the 5.5 Meter Class Olympic trials while sailing a ship that he designed. He selected as an alternate helmsman for the 1964 Summer Olympics for the Dragon Class and 5.5 Meter Class.
In 1965, he was the captain of the Composition that won a race at the 5.5 Meter Class World Championship help in the Bay of Naples. In 1966, he also won a race the 5.5 Meter Class World Championship in Denmark, sailing the Chance.
In 1970, his father told Sports Illustrated, "He was a good skipper, but basically, he always wanted to know why the boat was going fast or slow and what he could do to make her go faster. He's been that way from the beginning."
Career During the summers while in college, Chance worked at towing tank or the ship model basin at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. In the fall of 1960, he left college to apprentice as a draftsman with the boat designer C. Raymond Hunt and Fenwick Williams in Tilton, New Hampshire.Mitchell Carleton. "The Cups Gets an Unexpected Boost". Sports Illustrated. January 29, 1962; 16 (4): 14. Accessed April 20, 2022. In the spring of 1961, he apprenticed with Ted Hood, a boatbuilder, designer, and yachtsman located in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Hood had him working as a rigger, and also learning about sails and sail making. While with Hood, Chance supervised the towing tank tests on the Nefertiti, a 12-meter yacht created for the 1962 America's Cup. The test were conducted at the Stevens Institute. Chance is credited as both designer and assistant for the Nefetiti America's Cup trials.
Chance & Company However, he was mostly self-taught in naval architecture. In 1962, he opened Chance & Company in Oyster Bay, Long Island, above a Goodyear Tire Store, later moved to the third floor of his renovated whaling captain's house. Kirshenbaum, Jerry. "One if by Land. Two if by Sea." July 22, 1974. Sports Illustrated 41 (4): 32. via EBSCO. Accessed April 20, 2022 His naval architectural firm designed craft in a wide range of sizes, from racing shells to America's Cup competitors.Staff. "Industry mourns former America's Cup designer" , Trade Only today, October 15, 2012. Accessed November 4, 2012. He also designed rowing skulls and 5.5-meter class sailboats that raced in the Olympics. Most of his yachts were built at the shipyard in Mamaronek, New York.
In 1962, he received his first commissioned design for a 5.5-meter sailboat. Next, he designed a 40-foot trimaran that had a hydraulically activated roller-furling/reefing gear, a rotating mast, and hulls made of epoxy resins, using unidirectional materials that were very advanced for that time. In 1964, the New York Yacht Club selected Chance to receive funds, organization, and testing through a new program "to ease the burden especially of young and promising designers".
By the late 1970s, he was also president of Chance Marine of Wilmette, Illinois. In 1979, he relocated Chance & Company to Essex, Connecticut.Forbes, John B. "Family Marketing Sail Craft". The New York Times, October 6, 1985. Gale General OneFile (accessed April 20, 2022).
IYRU's 3MKB trials In 1965, Chance brought his new boat, Conqueror, to the IYRU's 3-Man-Keelboat (3MKB) trials in Kiel, Germany.Etchells, Tim. "the Man, the Boat". Sailing World, vol. 39, no. 4, May 2000, p. 30. via Gale General OneFile, April 20, 2022 Chance and Olympian George O'Day sailed the Conqueror, winning three of eleven races. The other eight races were won by the Shillalah, designed by Skip Etchells. Except for the Conqueror and the Shillalah, Etchells said, "None of the other boats factored in the racing." However, the IYRU Committee did not select a winner and called for additional trials, scheduled for Travemünde, Germany.
In August 1967, Chance took the Conqueror to Travemünde. There, he won three races, with the Shillalah II winning ten. This time, the Soling was selected as the new standard for the 3MKB. Etchells "thought it was hardly coincidental that neither his boat nor Britton Chance's had been mentioned, even though they had won all of the races for two years running."
Olympics He designed State-6 and Charade, which placed first and third, respectively, at the first race of the 5.5 Meter Class Olympic trials in 1964. Canada used one of his 5.5-meter class designs for the 1964 Summer Olympics. In 1968, twelve of the seventeen entries in the 5.5 Meter Class US Olympic Trials were his designs. The United States used one of his designs for the 1968 Summer Olympics. His innovative 5.5-meter designs won gold and silver medals in the 1968 Olympics.
1970 America's Cup In 1969, Chance designed an America's Cup sailboat for yachtsman Ted Turner of Atlanta. However, that yacht was not built because its construction cost of $1 million was more than Turner's syndicate could afford.
In January 1970, French industrialist Baron Marcel Bich hired Chance to develop a twelve-meter "trial horse" for a French team from Yacht Club d'Hyères, which was preparing to challenge the Intrepid, the 1967 America's Cup winner.Mitchell, Carleton. "$2 Million Birth to Newport". Sports Illustrated, November 24, 1969. vol. 31, no. 22, p. 28. via EBSCO. viewed April 20, 2022. With access to Bich's fortune from Bic pens, Chance noted, "Economic limitations were imposed only by the cost-effectiveness studies that we made." Chance's design was built by Hermann Eggerin in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, starting in June 1970. Yet, he still called upon former associates in the United States—Ted Hood and Lowell North made the sails, Bob Derecktor in Mamaroneck made the mast, and Barient of California fabricated special winches. His engineering and use of new metals reduced weight. Another of his innovations for the French was to make the test yacht smaller so that it could be operated by a crew of ten, instead of the usual eleven. He also placed the helmsman more forward. When it was completed in August 1970, Bich chose the name Chancegger as a combination of the surnames of designer and maker. Louis Noverraz, a European racing skipper said, "Chancegger is fast—very fast—and very sensitive on the helm." However, the Chancegger could only be used to test innovations; the rules of America's Cup say, "The competing yacht and its components must originate in the country making the challenge."
Although he was criticized by some for working for a foreign team, Chance had not yet designed a 12-meter ship and wanted "to use the experience to help him build an even better boat for the United States. He said, "My own attitude is that if the French had won America's Cup, the New York Yacht Club could only have blamed itself for not ordering a new boat from me." In fact, Chance was hired by Bill Flicker, a member of the New York Yacht Club, as the lead designer to improve the Intrepid for the America's Cup trials. Before beginning his work on Intrepid, Chance formally ended his association with Bich's project.
Chance spent four months in Hoboken, New Jersey; he tank-tested 75 model hulls until he found "the winning design for Intrepid". He applied three materials that had not previously been used in commercial ship design—beryllium, boron, and carbon epoxy composites. Chance cut the weight of vital fitting by 65% by substituting beryllium on the top of the mast, boron graphite for the boom, and magnesium for the winches. He also added a small computer that gave true speed and a tape device that plots the yacht's course. Along with changes to the keel and stern, Chance increased the speed of Intrepid by 18%. He said, "Designing Chanceggar provided experience without which we couldn't have improved Intrepid as much as we have."
In June 1970, Time magazine noted, "Intrepid should probably be rechristened Son of Intrepid. Designer Britton Chance Jr., 29, has altered the 1967 cup winner so much that it is virtually a new boat." A rival designer said Chance "performed a hysterectomy on her keel". To everyone's surprise, except maybe Chance, the redesigned Intrepid beat the Valiant, the "early favorite", in America's Cup trials in August 1970. The Valiant was designed by Olin J. Stephens II, "the man who practically invented the 12-meter sloop", and had designed three America's Cup winners. The Intrepid also won the 1970 America's Cup.
Chance said, "Sure it was a triumph. I took an older boat and improved her." Sports Illustrated noted, "[Intrepid] has undergone major surgery below the waterline under the knife of a young pretender, Britton Chance Jr. Stephens ... would have to be inhuman if that knife has not pricked his pride."Johnson, William. "Down to the Sea in $". Sports Illustrated. August 17, 1970; 33 (7): 16. Via EBSCO. Accessed April 20, 2022. Stephens said, "I was disappointed to see Intrepid modified. She'd been successful and was a yardstick of our progress in 12-meter design. With her lines changed, we lost our benchmark."
1974 and 1977 America's Cup