AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : Dickson, Cayard Show Their Formidable Skills
Developments ominous for the 1992 America’s Cup occurred at Long Beach and Miami, Fla., last week.
The Japanese, Italian and New Zealand teams--still the only ones sailing their own boats off San Diego--left town for a week to compete in world-class competition elsewhere and sent shock waves rolling all the way back to Pt. Loma.
At Miami, American skipper Paul Cayard and his crew from the Il Moro di Venezia syndicate won the second 50-Foot World Cup event of the season aboard Abracadabra, sailing away from 13 rivals with a string of 1-2-3-1-2-4 finishes.
At Long Beach, New Zealand’s Chris Dickson, sailing for the Nippon Challenge, won the Congressional Cup match-racing affair for the second straight year.
It was no surprise that two other Kiwis, Russell Coutts and American expatriate Rod Davis, placed second and third at Long Beach. New Zealand’s sailing talent is well established.
But the two results underscored the success Cayard and Dickson have had in developing their teams into formidable threats to win the Cup. Cayard’s crew was all-Italian, Dickson’s half-Japanese, and the work of both was virtually flawless.
Dickson, ranked first on the world match-racing circuit the last three years, might be the best sailor in the world one-on-one, which is what the America’s Cup is about. But a year ago, when he took the Nippon job, there were skeptics that he could win with an inexperienced Japanese crew. Not any more.
His bowman was Ken Hara, the mastman Jin Matsuhara, and Matsuyoshi Nishikawa was in the cockpit. Along with tactician-mainsail trimmer John Cutler and headsail trimmer Michael Spanhake from New Zealand and “local knowledge” expert Ron Rosenberg from Long Beach, they sailed 12 races without a glitch.
Cayard was invited to the Congressional but preferred to sail the conflicting 50-footer event because the boats are closer to the new 75-foot America’s Cup boats than the Catalina 37s used in the Congressional. Also, with a crew of 15, he could use all but one of his America’s Cup crew.
Their boat Abracadabra also is owned by Italian industrialist Raul Gardini, who bought it as a training platform.
“We need to keep doing close racing in preparation for the America’s Cup, and the 50s have a very competitive series,” Gardini was quoted by Lois Fecteau of Soundings.
But the 50s sail fleet races, so Cayard missed the close-quarter, mano-a-mano match racing--particularly the pre-start circling duels--at which Dickson is a master.
Dennis Conner, still awaiting delivery of his America’s Cup boat early next month, did not compete in either event. John Kostecki, the latest helmsman hired by Bill Koch’s America-3 team, the only other American defender, placed fourth at Miami sailing Champosa for its Japanese owner, Mark Morita.
At this point, the three well-funded foreign syndicates are in a class by themselves. France, led by Marc Pajot, is given a chance to compete once it gets its boat in the water. No others are far enough along to rate.