Jim Hardy steers 1983 America's Cup win; yacht career starts in 'clapped out' dinghy at Adelaide's Seacliff club
Jim Hardy was at the helm of Australia II to eight wins in the triumphant 1983 America's Cup challenge. Right: The yacht Nerida was built for Jim Hardy's father Tom to a design by Messrs A. Mylne and Co. in Glasgow and launched in 1933. After Tom Hardy was killed in a 1938 air crash, the Nerida was sold and regained by the Hardy family. It became "one of the most beautiful and celebrated yachts on Sydney Harbour".
Main image by Andrea Francolini Photography
Jim (James) Hardy, a member of the America's Cup Hall of Fame, was credited with setting the tone for Australia’s momentous and nation-building victory in the famous yacht race in 1983.
A great grandson of the South Australian winemaker and company founder Thomas Hardy, James Hardy was born in 1932 at Seacliff on Adelaide’s inner south coast. His father, Tom Mayfield Hardy, managing director of Thomas Hardy and Sons, financed the land for the Brighton and Seacliff Yacht Club’s rooms and was its commodore. When Tom Hardy was killed in the “Kyeema” plane crash in 1938, his wife Eileen, raising four children, had to sell his yacht Nerida associated with the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron.
Jim Hardy started his sailing with Brighton and Seacliff club at around 10 in a ”clapped out” Int Cadet dinghy named Mermaid. He won his first national championship in the Flying Dutchman class at 16 and was a reserve for the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games. He won the 505 Class world titles, hosted by his Adelaide home club in 1966, and competed at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He was part of four Admiral’s cups and No.1 helmsman of the winning Impetuous in 1979.
Returning to Australia after world titles in the 1960s, Hardy visited America’s Cup races in Newport in the United States of America. This drove him to become absorbed in an Australian America’s Cup bid. In 1970, Hardy took command of Gretel II in the challenge against Bill Ficker and 1967 cup defender Intrepid. Despite losing after a controversial collision and protest, Hardy skippered Southern Cross in 1974 against Ted Hood’s Courageous, and Australia in 1980.
He was reserve skipper and key advisor aboard Australia II in the 1983 America's Cup, helming the 12-metre to eight wins from nine races in the Challenger final when the designated helmsman John Bertrand had a pinched nerve in his neck.
Hardy became chairman of the family wine company and involved other public causes but remained closely associated with yachting. The Hardy Cup, for international youth match racing teams, spawned many top international sailing careers.
The Hardy family bought back the yacht Nerida in 1970 after it had taken a Sydney to Hobart title for Colin Haselgrove in 1950. Hardy continued to sail competitively until late in life, retiring after the Adelaide-to-Port Lincoln race on Secret Mens Business.
Hardy was knighted for services to yachting and the community, and named Australian Yachtsman of the Year, in 1981. In 1994, he was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame; in 2000, awarded the Australian Sports Medal and, in 2017, an inaugural inductee to the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame as a member of Australia II.
