The Manhattan Project

Bill Buchan — crewed by a young Steve Erickson — won the 1984 Star gold medal in Los Angeles at the age of 49.

Now John Dane III is attempting to go one better; crewed by his son-in law, Austin Sperry, Dane recently won the USA Star Olympic selections at age 57. Lynne Fitzpatrick talks to the man whose eighth Olympic campaign has finally netted him a cherished shot at the big prize

John Dane and Austin Sperry's quest to win the 2008 US OlympicTrials in the Star class took on such proportions competitors nicknamed the program the Manhattan Project, after the $2 billion ­ dollar, 130,000-person effort by the United States to build the first atomic bomb.

John Dane, 57, sailed his first Olympic Trials in 1968 as a Dragon crew, and he has been campaigning Solings, Finns and Stars ever since. Austin Sperry, John's 29-year old son-in-law, sailed the 2004 US Star Trials with the team's principal sailmaker, George Szabo of Quantum, and has been working and sailing with John for the past two and a half years.

But in addition to a wedding (Austin married John's daughter, Sally) and an Olympic campaign, the pair have at the same time orchestrated the recovery of Trinity Yachts, a substantial New Orleans yacht building, brokerage and service business that was annihilated during Hurricane Katrina.

As Trinity's CEO, Dane quickly decided to relocate his devastated business from New Orleans to Gulfport, Mississippi. He purchased 100 'kit homes' plus a boatyard and invited all his employees to move over to Gulfport with him. Since those first faltering days Trinity has doubled in size and the company was the poster child of the Gulf Coast recovery; President Bush stops in to showcase Dane's industriousness whenever he is in the area...

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