Slap on the face for challenger Michael Fay

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 21

Slap on the face for challenger Michael Fay

NZPA Washington The America’s Cup defender, San Diego Yacht Club, has put together a formidable array of experienced talent to produce a fast, multi-hull yacht to beat the Kiwi challenge.

In a slap on the face for the Auckland banker, Michael Fay, the club and its America’s Cup defence .manager Sail America announced late Friday it would build two multihulls, one a catamaran, for the America’s Cup defence. John Marshall, the head of the design team for S.D.Y.C. and Sail America and manager for the Cup defence, strongly hinted the series would be held in either Hawaii or Long Beach and not San Diego. The multi-hull announcement set the stage for yet another battle with New Zealand as it would be the first time the Cup had been contested in a catamaran or the like and conflicts with Fay’s claim that a single-hulled vessel must be used to match the yacht he has under construction. Fay has in the past raised the prospect of going back to court to prove that point and that the race should be in San Diego. S.D.Y.C. also named an 18-member design team to produce the yachts which are expected to be on the water before July 1, only two months before the expected start of the races.

The announcement came just hours after Fay had left San Diego where he had had two days of talks with the S.D.Y.C. America’s Cup committee to try and reach agreement on the dates and number of races for the challenge, the location of the regatta, and type of defending yacht. Fay left feeling confident all issues were on

the table and still for discussion. He even was prepared to have the races put off to 1989, and was to contact the club again by phone today. Instead while he was in Los Angeles awaiting his plane back to Auckland, S.D.Y.C. continued its hard-ball tactics and announced the multi-hulled yachts. “We were ready to seriously discuss these issues including the possibility of extending the race to 1989,” Fay said soon before boarding his plane for Auckland. “It was our understanding we were to respond to the issues by Monday, which we were prepared to do. “This action by Sail America disposes of the agenda. We are now back in our respective corners.” At the earlier S.D.Y.C./ Sail America news conference in San Diego, Marshall said the openness of the Cup this year gave designers “the opportunity to shoot for the moon.” “We truly think we’re going to see boats on both sides, the New Zealand boat and our own boat, that will establish levels of performance that are

far beyond anything we have seen and perhaps even imagined.” Compared to a 12metre, which can sometimes get up to 15 knots, Marshall believes both the New Zealand and defending boats will be capable of more then 30 knots. Marshall said the San Diego boats, the first of which would be called Stars and Stripes like

Dennis Conner’s 1987 Fremantle winner, would be built “as light as we can possibly build it” and. made from carbon fibre. The yachts would be shorter than the 90-foot giant being built for Fay and would be crewed by about 11 or 12 people, compared with the expected 30-40 on Fay’s New Zealand. “We’re not going to go to 90 feet. We’re not going to tell you exactly how big, but we know that the structural engineering and other considerations are so daunting in the time available that building an absolute maximum size boat would probably reduce our chances to win,” said Marshall. As for the defence site, Marshall said the “probability” is it would be somewhere else other than San Diego. There were two strong candidates suitable for the high performance yachts “and will allow both our boat and New Zealand’s to show their stuff.” One was Hawaii, “a very windy, very challenging environment,” and the other the 1984 Olympics - Congressional Cup course off Long Beach near Los Angeles. “That’s more a medium-wind environment, but in the month of September, which is one of the lightest-wind months in San Diego, the Long Beach course would offer a point in between,” said Marshall. “The new boats are not going to get up and flying until there’s a little breeze. Just to realise the potential in the boats, we do need some wind.”