Even New Zealanders Criticizing Fay for America’s Cup Challenge

Dennis Conner was once the most controversial of sailors but has happily surrendered that reputation to New Zealand’s Michael Fay.

By using rules that have been ignored for a hundred years, the Kiwi merchant banker is forcing San Diego to defend the America’s Cup next September, three years ahead of schedule, and to do it in something other than 12-meter boats.

Has this made Fay a hero in his tiny homeland? Not completely.

Columnist Joe Romanos of the Wellington Dominion drilled Fay with both barrels in a recent story with the headline, “Fay Turning America’s Cup Into Sour Joke.”

Romanos took particular exception to Fay’s offhand comment that he’d like to be on the 40-man boat because “surely, there must be one position that’s not too important.”

Romanos wrote: “He’s not happy merely to bankroll the challenge. Now he wants to be on the boat.

“King Michael may well enjoy the headlines. He may sit smugly watching the Americans squirm. Worse, the rest of New Zealand may also delight in getting one up on the Yanks.

“I find no joy in that sight. I never like to see one man grow bigger than a sport because he has the money to so influence it.”

What inspired Romanos to keelhaul Fay is best explained by one who knows the Kiwi mind. Bill Manson, a New Zealand journalist based in San Diego, suspects it was more than Romanos’ sporting instincts that were offended.

“In New Zealand there are a lot of regional hatreds,” Manson said. “(Fay’s campaign) is definitely an Auckland thing, so I’m not surprised that a Wellington paper would dig in against him.”

Auckland, the larger city, is near the north end of the North Island. Wellington, the capital, is at the south end. On the larger but sparsely populated South Island, it’s hardly an issue, Manson said.

“Down in Christchurch and Dunedin they’ve never heard of the America’s Cup,” Manson said.

As San Diego wishes it had never heard of Michael Fay.

Romanos has a new, outspoken ally in Doug Alford, a lawyer who quickly stepped up the war of words when he became commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club last month.

Alford’s predecessor, pediatrician Fred Frye, to his credit was the only principal that didn’t initially pooh-pooh Fay’s surprising challenge, which has been upheld by the New York Supreme Court.

Now Alford, seeking firm legal ground, has written Fay to feel him out on New Zealand’s specific, Deed of Gift-based objections to Sail America 1) sailing a boat dissimilar to Fay’s 90-foot-waterline monohull and 2) running the defense somewhere besides San Diego.

Alford closed his letter with the admonition to Fay that “the format which you have established for communications between you and . . . (us), that is, the primacy of press releases over private correspondence . . . achieves nothing more than the destruction of the dignity and traditions of the America’s Cup. . . . The America’s Cup will be better served if you agree with us to try to restore some decorum to our continuing dialogue by the adoption of more customary and businesslike means of communication.”

Sail America, of course, distributed Alford’s letter to the sailing press.

Fay will be in San Diego next week to meet with local business and political people but isn’t likely to tip his hand on what his case might be if he takes San Diego back to court.

Fay’s aide, Peter Debreceny, said, “If we’re going to be living there for a while, we thought we’d get to know the place and the people.”

Randy Smyth, who is helping Sail America design a catamaran to sail against the Kiwis, also has geared up his Olympic campaign again, with a new crew.

Jay Glaser, with whom he won two Tornado world championships and a silver medal at Long Beach in ‘84, has opened up his own sail loft in Signal Hill.

When Glaser worked at Sails by Smyth in Huntington Beach, Smyth said: “We had a logistics problem. We’d both take off to go sailing and the shop would close.”

To keep the shop open during his Formula 40 efforts in France and other competitions, Smyth sometimes had to find other crews and leave Glaser behind.

His new crew is Kenny Watts, who was with Dave Ullman for three world 470 titles and the ’84 Olympic campaign. The team dominated the recent series of 10 training races at the Olympic Sailing Center in Florida, well ahead of runners-up Gary Knapp and crew Chris Steinfeld.

Smyth figures that Watts’ height (6-3) will provide the hike-out leverage needed for Pusan, which turned out to be a lot windier than expected at the Olympic Practice Regatta a few months ago.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Olympic Tornado trials, as well as those for the 470 and Flying Dutchman dinghy classes, were already scheduled for early this summer at Newport, R.I., where the winds are relatively light.

“That was a mistake,” Smyth said. “We’ll probably do a lot of San Francisco (practice sailing).”

Smyth, a dedicated innovator, also has been experimenting with new techniques. One is flying a hull downwind in light air.

“It’s a little tricky,” Smyth said. “We capsized once. But it’s also a lot faster.”

Sailing Notes

New Zealand’s Michael Fay will be at the California YC in Marina del Rey on Saturday night, March 5, to present his side of the America’s Cup controversy to local sailors. Reservations may be made by writing the club at 4469 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292. Admission is $10, with checks made out to the California Corinthian Foundation to support Olympic sailors. . . . Olympic front-runner John Kostecki of San Francisco, with crew Bob Billingham and Will Bayless, defended his world Soling title in seven races at Melbourne, Australia, this week, but he barely edged the veteran Dave Curtis after the lead changed five times in the final race. . . . Peter Huston is the new sailing administrator for the Balboa YC. Highlight events this year will be the Leiter Trophy, a USYRU-sanctioned regatta for women under 20, in Laser Radials Aug. 22-26, and the Governor’s Cup for youth match racers in Santana 20s Aug. 3-7. Huston hopes to attract more USYRU championship events to the area. . . . Pepsi, one of Dennis Conner’s backers last year, has become a major corporate sponsor for this years’s America’s Cup defense against New Zealand. . . . Sail America has hired two new lawyers: Jane L. Ellison as vice president and general counsel and Terry D. Harper as vice president of race management. Ellison will continue as general counsel for the United States Football League, which still awaits an appellate court ruling on its antitrust suit against the National Football League. . . . Newport Beach’s Dave Ullman, with 13 lofts, and Bill Shore, with 14, have merged their sailmaking businesses. Ullman Shore is now the second largest sailmaker in the country, behind North. The group calling itself the Long Beach Olympic Sailing Team will hold a fund-raiser the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 17, at the Hyatt Edgewater in that city. Tickets are $30 and tax deductible. The group--all ranking members of the U.S. sailing team--includes John Shadden and crew Charlie McKee, 470; Pete Melvin and crew Pat Muglia, Tornado; Ron and Steve Rosenberg, Flying Dutchman, Pease Herndon and crew Cindy Goff, women’s 470, and Richard Byron, Finn.