Sailing Career
Sailing as a member of the Knickerbocker Yacht Club, Mosbacher led the team that won the Scoville Cup and the Midget Yacht championship for under-15 racers in 1940 on Long Island Sound. He went on to win the Southern Ocean Racing Conference championship in 1958 and the Mallory Cup, also in 1958. Mosbacher later appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, on May 18, 1959, with his brother Bus Mosbacher, for a feature article titled Kings of the Class-Boat Sailors. The article called Bob Mosbacher "the unquestioned master of fleet racing".
Mosbacher won the Silver Medal in World Championships Dragon class in 1967 in Toronto.
In 1969, he won the Gold Medal in World Championships Dragon class at Palma de Mallorca by one point. As of 2010, he was still only one of two Americans to have ever won the World Championships in the Dragon class.
He won the Gold Medal in World Championships Soling class in 1971 in Oyster Bay, NY on a boat named "Adlez" built by Abbott with rigging from Melges. Mosbacher beat a 53 boat fleet which included 15 Olympic Gold Medal winners amongst its ranks. Mosbacher was the only one to finish in the top ten in all five races. He went 5-4-2-10-7 in the five races for the title. (This was the year that third place finisher, Paul Bert Elvstrøm, started the trend of dropping the crew over the side in what is called drop hiking.)
He lost to Buddy Melges in the 1972 Olympic Trials (Soling class) in San Francisco Bay. Buddy Melges went on to win the Gold Medal in the Soling Class at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Germany.
Mosbacher won the Bronze Medal in World Championships 5.5 metre class in 1985 at Newport Beach. In 1988 he won the Scandinavian Gold Cup for 5.5 metre yachts.
He was described in Stuart H. Walker's book Advanced Racing Tactics as a keenly competitive racer "unwilling to settle for second".
Mosbacher participated in a semi-final match race against Ted Turner in the Mallory Cup in 1960. On the final windward leg, Mosbacher was slightly ahead. Ted Turner attempted to force Mosbacher into a mistake by executing a grueling tacking duel. The windward leg involved an incredible fifty-two tacks. In the end, Mosbacher won by five seconds.
Read more about this topic: Robert Mosbacher
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