Three join America’s Cup Hall Of Fame

San Francisco, CA (August 6, 2013) – Three distinguished members of the America’s Cup family were inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame on Monday night.

Grant Simmer, Lucy Jewett, and the late Noel Robins received the honor at a ceremony in San Francisco.

More on each of the inductees is below, from our story announcing the inductees earlier this year.

A winning navigator, a quiet female leader and a posthumous recognition mark the 2013 induction class of Grant Simmer, Lucy M. Jewett and Noel Robbins to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.

Simmer, currently the general manager of ORACLE TEAM USA, was a shaggy-haired 26-year-old when he served as navigator aboard Australia II. The crew made history in the waning days of the summer of 1983 when it became the first challenger to win the America’s Cup, thus ending the New York Yacht Club’s 132-year winning streak. Simmer has made a career in the America’s Cup, serving with nine teams since that historic win and posting two additional victories along the way, with Alinghi in 2003 and ’07.

Jewett becomes just the second female member (Gertrude Vanderbilt, class of 1993) of the Hall of Fame and joins her late husband George F. “Fritz” Jewett (class of 2005).

In 1974, Lucy began her association with the Cup when the Jewetts became the owners of the 12-Metre yacht Intrepid. The Jewetts then backed the winning Dennis Conner-skippered Freedom 12-Meter syndicate in 1980, as well as Conner’s subsequent campaigns in 1983, ’87 and ’88. Throughout these efforts Lucy was the quiet leader among members of the crew, their families, the team principals, sponsors and supporters. She returned to the fray again in 2000 with Paul Cayard’s AmericaOne Challenge.

Lucy Jewett currently serves on the board of the San Francisco America’s Cup Organizing Committee, the organization responsible for raising the funds to support San Francisco’s hosting of the 34th America’s Cup season, and remains one of the most respected and admired figures in the America’s Cup community.

Robins skippered the 12-Meter Australia in the 1977 America’s Cup against Ted Turner’s Courageous. In 1980 he returned with Alan Bond’s challenging team as a coach. Seven years later, following Bond’s successful 1983 Australia II challenge, when the Royal Perth Yacht Club needed to organize the first ever America’s Cup season outside of the United States, Robins served as Executive Director and applied masterful management to the project, which resulted in the magnificent organization of the 26th America’s Cup in Fremantle, Australia. That event in 1986-87 is widely credited to this day as probably the greatest season of America’s Cup sport ever.

Robins, a walking paraplegic after a car accident at the age of 21, was instrumental in the establishment of the Sailability Program for disabled sailors at the Royal Perth YC, and a commissioner of the Swan River Trust. In 2000 he collected a gold medal at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, an achievement that also secured him the Medal of the Order of Australia. He died in May 2003 at the age of 67, four weeks after being struck by a car.

The America’s Cup Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, jointly organized by the Herreshoff Marine Museum and Louis Vuitton, will take place in San Francisco on the evening of Monday, Aug. 5, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco during the Louis Vuitton Cup, the America’s Cup Challenger Series. Story