Two local teams are vying to bring home Sailing’s most vaunted prize. For the competitors, the stakes are high. For the Bay Area, the stakes are astronomical.
By Sharael Feist
March 9, 1999
There is a top-secret mission taking place right here in the Bay Area that includes millions of dollars, state-of-the-art technology, and wind. The mission? To win the America’s Cup 2000. Due to the highly competitive nature of the America’s Cup, teams are keeping a tight lid on the exact amount of expenses and the specific details of the technology used in designing the lighting-fast racing machines.
Two Bay Area syndicates, as well as over a dozen other boats, will be competing one-on-one in elimination rounds to decide who will be able to challenge the current holder of the America’s Cup, Team New Zealand. The race is scheduled to take place in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2000.
America’s top woman sailor, Dawn Riley, the first woman ever to manage an America’s Cup syndicate, will be at the helm of AmericaTrue, which is backed by the San Francisco Yacht Club. (A syndicate includes the sailing team, technical teams, boat builders, financing, etc.) AmericaTrue’s Bay Area competitor, America One, is sponsored by the St. Francis Yacht Club and will be skippered by world-class sailor Paul Cayard.
If either of these teams wins the America’s Cup, that win will have an enormous effect on the economy and sailing in the Bay Area. It means that the next America’s Cup race would be held here, which would be like holding 16 weeks of Super Bowls back-to-back, due to nearly four months of elimination rounds leading up to the final competition. An event that large could generate an enormous amount of revenue for this area–possibly even more than hosting the Olympics.
It means the Bay Area would experience an influx of thousands of people–including sailors, technical teams, shore teams, boat builders, and their families, all of whom would be in the area for approximately 15 months of training and racing–not to mention thousands of reporters and tourists.
“It will be huge,” says Cayard. “For the sailing community, it will mean an incredible amount of new interest in the sport.”
<b>Enemy Territory</b>
The AmericaTrue crew is already training in New Zealand on the former TAGHeuer, which was raced by Chris Dickson in the 1995 America’s Cup. It’s now called AmericaTrue. The crew’s new boat is being built in Lake Tahoe and will be launched sometime this spring.
America One left for New Zealand in January. The team has done some training on San Francisco Bay on America One, but will be training in New Zealand on OneAustralia, and is having two new boats built in Costa Mesa, CA. One will be launched in late spring, the other in late summer.
Both teams’ training will include extensive sailing, racing against other teams, and working out regularly in a gym.
“We will be sailing as many days as the weather allows in New Zealand,” says Riley. “We will be focusing on crew maneuvers and learning the local conditions.”
While Cayard is more confident choosing a crew that is tried and true, Riley is giving less experienced sailors a once-in-a-lifetime chance to compete in this prestigious race. While she is looking for raw talent, reputation, and sailing experience, she has also held open tryouts where she looked recruits who may have less ideal attributes, but who have the ability to fit in and a positive attitude, which she says are extremely important.
In building his crew, Cayard says he looks for talent at specific positions, experience, and loyalty. “It is also important to inject youth, which brings high motivation and some diversity,” Cayard says. “This way you don’t get all yes-men, but some new ideas too.”
Besides a strong crew, a fast boat is also a key factor to winning the race. AmericaTrue is building its boat with the help of NASA, which is researching the effects wind and water will have on the yacht. The NASA consultants will help with the design of the sails, mast, and hull.
“There is no doubt that the fastest boat will win the America’s Cup,” says Riley. “The technological research NASA is offering our team will help us build that boat.”
Cayard also feels his team has a good chance at winning due to the experience of both the sailing team and design team. He says that experience, talent, and technology give his crew an edge over its competitors.
“Having the fastest boat is almost a guarantee to win in this game,” says Cayard. “And we have been working on the design of our boat with some of the best technological powers.”
Building a fast boat isn’t cheap. The estimated cost for an America’s Cup campaign averages approximately $30 million. AmericaTrue is being sponsored by software companies Radioss and Structural Dynamics Research Corp., while America One’s sponsors include Hewlett Packard, Ford, Bellcore, and SAIC. Both Cayard and Riley agree that raising money is the most difficult task in preparing for the America’s Cup.
“Right now it is hard to think that anything will be harder than worrying about raising funds,” says Riley. “But I know there will be times that we will look back at this time as ‘the good old days.'”
<b>No Strangers</b>
Cayard and Riley are no strangers. Even though they both live in the Bay Area, they have raced on opposing yachts throughout the world. Races that they have both competed in include the America’s Cup, the Kenwood Cup and the Big Boat Series.
Having previously competed in the America’s Cup as captain of the women’s team America3 in 1995 and as the only woman on the winning America3 team in 1992, Dawn Riley knows what to expect. She is the only American to have raced on two America’s Cup teams and two Whitbread Round the World teams. Her enormous drive, determination, and desire to win the America’s Cup is an immense motivation for her coed crew.
“A positive attitude is important…some people have made the cut because they bring a good morale to the team,” Riley says.
Cayard has also engaged in the challenge for the America’s Cup. He competed on Stars and Stripes in 1995, Il Moro di Venezia in 1992, USA in 1987, and Defender in 1983. Having recently won the Whitbread Round the World race, he is ready to add an America’s Cup to his trophy collection.
Although the Whitbread Round the World race is much different than the America’s Cup, it’s becoming almost as prestigious. The most recent Whitbread started and finished in Southampton, UK. Cayard’s winning boat, EF Language, finished the estimated 31 ,600-mile race in 117 days.
The America’s Cup is still the granddaddy of sailing races, however, boasting the oldest trophy in professional sports. The race was first held in 1851, when the Royal Yacht Squadron of England sent out a challenge to sailors of all nations. The winning country would be proclaimed as the world’s best sailors. Due to superior technology, America won the 58-mile race and astounded the British teams.
The U.S. held onto its victory for 132 years, until 1983, when the cup was won by Australia, giving the event worldwide attention. In 1992, the U.S. captured the cup again, but lost it to New Zealand in 1995. Once again, the Americans are on a mission to gain it back.
Neither Cayard or Riley is favored to win the race, but many sailing pundits still give both of them an outside chance. Former America’s Cup winners Gary Jobson and Peter Isler both agree that neither of the teams rank in their top three choices of possible winners. Isler and Jobson concur that the defender of the cup, Team New Zealand, will be difficult to beat.
“Team New Zealand had an incredible advantage in boat speed in the 1995 America’s Cup. They had the best technology,” Isler says. “Plus, Russell Coutts is as good a skipper as they come.”
As far as American teams go, Isler and Jobson say they feel that Young America, sponsored by the New York Yacht Club, has a good shot at winning because it has excellent funding and the reputable Bruce Farr on its design team. Their third choice is Prada Challenge 2000, sponsored by Yacht Club Punta Ala of Italy, because it is also well funded and its designer, Doug Peterson, has designed two winning America’s Cup boats.
Jobson, who is also the sailing analyst for ESPN, says, “I think these three teams have the best chance at winning because they are the best funded, they started doing their boat building research early, and they have been testing on and off the water for nearly two years.”
As for the Bay Area teams, Isler says that America One has an advantage because it is the only U.S. team with big corporate sponsors. He also feels that AmericaTrue is doing a good job at making a name for itself and that it has a good spirit, but is less well funded. &