A Hull Lot of Problems Exist Between Boats in the America’s Cup

New Zealand’s attorney addressed the New York state Supreme Court last week with the notion that Sail America is staging a “dog and pony show” rather than an America’s Cup defense.

Perhaps he should have chosen his words a bit more carefully. Dogs and ponies would probably be insulted to be linked with all the rhetoric that has been tossed back and forth since the Kiwis issued their challenge last summer.

The shame of it is that both sides now have their boats in the water, yet neither knows for sure whether these boats will ever engage each other in a race.

The uncertainty is caused by the fact that yet another court ruling will determine whether Stars & Stripes can be a catamaran rather than a monohull, such as New Zealand turned loose in the ocean off San Diego Tuesday morning.

“I don’t know what the outcome will be,” said Michael Fay, the investment banker who chairs the Kiwi challenge, “but we know we’re right.”

Of course, both sides know they are right. Fay knows that a catamaran should never be allowed to race against his monohull, not according to the spirit of the Deed of Gift that governs this competition. And Sail America knows that the Deed of Gift does not exclude catamarans.

Indeed, neither side has ever been wrong, not in its own mind, anyway.

Sail America felt it was right when it protested that the Kiwis’ 1988 challenge was not in keeping with the spirit of the Deed of Gift, and it lost in court.

The loser in this current round of legal maneuvering is going to be a very big loser, because there is so little time to recoup between now and the scheduled racing in September.

The specter of uncertainty was the only cloud in the sky Tuesday as Fay prepared to take his expensive new toy onto San Diego waters for the first time. It was something to see.

“This isn’t a boat show,” he said. “This is America’s Cup. I brought this boat to race.”

This was a most gorgeous visitor, with its pastel gold sails hanging from a mast 15 stories high. No boat show has seen anything like it, because nothing like it has ever been built. It attracted a flock of helicopters and handful of pleasure craft as it stretched out in a brisk breeze.

The New Zealand is undoubtedly the most exotic racing yacht in history, and not because it features anything like a wet bar or wide-screen television. The key word is “racing.” The hull is built of carbon fiber Nomex, a lightweight material, and many of the fittings and components are built of titanium, a compound the New Zelanders claim is 50% stronger and lighter than stainless steel.

Indeed, much time, money, research and thought has gone into this splendid 123-foot yacht.

“This is yachting’s premier event,” Fay said, “and it deserves a challenger and a defender like the Kiwi boat.”

But the defender does not have a boat like the Kiwi boat. Stars & Stripes is a catamaran, a multihull. There are two catamarans, in fact, one with an “airplane wing” for a sail and one with conventional sails. Fay does not care to race against either one of them.

“We considered a catamaran early on,” Fay said, “but we considered what America’s reaction would be and everyone else’s. Our position was that a catamaran was probably not eligible under the Deed of Gift.”

And now the catamaran’s eligibility is being contemplated in the New York Supreme Court, and Fay is not the one who has one.

This gets down to a harsh reality.

Should the Kiwis win the court decision and the catamaran be ruled out, Fay can tell the cabinetmakers back in New Zealand to start building a trophy case for the America’s Cup. Sail America certainly will not have time to build a competitive monohull between now and September, and nothing already in the water figures to be a match for New Zealand.

Should the decision favor Sail America, Fay could race his monohull against the catamaran . . . but.

Would the marvelous mono have a chance?

“That’s a question some people are asking,” Fay said. “I don’t think anyone can answer it until after the race.”

And then he answered it.

“The fact of life is that multihulls beat monohulls,” he said. “This isn’t doubles. In tennis, a singles player can’t beat a doubles team. They don’t match-race catamarans against monohulls . . . anywhere.”

Given this well-founded suspicion that his boat cannot beat a catamaran, Fay would be in a rather tenuous position should the verdict go against him. It would be as difficult for him to find a way to be competitive as it would be for Stars & Stripes given the opposite decision.

“Building a new boat,” he said, “would be logistically very tight.”

The Deed of Gift mandates that the boat must be built in the challenging country. There’s little likelihood that Sail America, given the tenor of relations between the challenger and the champion, would waive this tenet of the Deed and allow Fay to build a catamaran here.

The essence of all this is that challenger and defender quite likely are sailing boats that will never meet. There may ultimately be a race of sorts, but the winner will be a foregone conclusion . . . as determined by the New York Supreme Court.