Ficker Bothered by Storm Enveloping America’s Cup
Although the waters may have been just as rough and the winds just as strong, former America’s Cup defender Bill Ficker can’t help but feel that his were days of much smoother sailing.
“The situation with the America’s Cup today is a travesty, really,” said Ficker, a Newport Beach resident who in 1970 became the first West Coast sailor to skipper an America’s Cup yacht to victory.
“It’s all very disturbing.”
Ficker is, of course, referring to the feud between Michael Fay, the New Zealand challenger, and and the San Diego Yacht Club, the Cup’s defender.
Fay and the San Diego Yacht Club have been battling since Fay issued a surprise challenge last July 15. Their disputes have led to two New York Supreme Court battles. One--regarding the type and size of boats to be raced--is currently being decided.
“A sailing soap opera,” Ficker said.
A brief summary:
Fay, a merchant banker and the prime sponsor of the New Zealand challenge, bucked Cup tradition last July when he issued a surprise challenge to the San Diego Yacht Club. Traditionally, it is the defender who invites challengers to race.
The San Diego Yacht Club’s Cup managers, the Sail America Foundation, called Fay’s challenge a surprise attack and ultimately decided to ignore it. But the New York Supreme Court ruled last November that Fay was within his rights, and Sail America was forced to accept the challenge.
Sail America later decided to meet Fay’s challenge in a catamaran, making victory a virtual certainty.
But Fay demanded that the defender use a boat similar to his, a keel-ballasted monohull, 90 feet at the waterline.
The two sides are awaiting a decision on that matter from New York State Supreme Court Judge Carmen Ciparick and say they expect one by the end of the month.
“Of course I’m very interested in the outcome,” Ficker said.
Though Ficker says he sides with neither Fay nor the San Diego Yacht Club, he believes the initial error was the San Diego Yacht Club’s, as it was unprepared when Fay challenged.
“Basically, the San Diego Yacht Club fell fast asleep after the last (America’s Cup) race,” Ficker said. “Then, while no one was expecting anything, Fay comes along and says, ‘Hey, let’s play with my cards. Let’s play by my rules.’ ”
“Fay didn’t do anything wrong by (challenging). San Diego just wasn’t properly prepared.”
“In 1970, we had a challenge in our hand before our last race. But San Diego didn’t have a challenge, so they (slipped). It’s just like any other sport or in business, you’ve got to stay awake.”
Though Ficker, 60, hasn’t sailed competitively in several years, he remains very active in the sport. Along with judging regattas on both the national and international level, Ficker serves on the appeals committee of the United States Yacht Racing Union.
For this reason, Ficker has kept a keen eye on the current America’s Cup situation.
“It’s all very interesting, but (also) disturbing,” Ficker said.
As far as the current debate over whether San Diego should be able to use its high-tech catamarans against Fay’s monohull, Ficker said: “Actually, the precedent that supersedes everything (is that) catamarans simply do not race monohulls in any other sailing in the world. . . . (Why) should they start now?”
Ficker said that if catamarans are allowed to race for the America’s Cup, the results would probably be predictable.
“It wouldn’t be a race, it would be a drag race,” he said. “Catamarans are just plain faster than monohulls.”
What does Ficker, the 1958 world champion in the Star class (boats 22-feet 8-inches in length), see as the future of 12-meter yachts in the America’s Cup?
“Personally, I think there is a lot of interest in the world to sail (the America’s Cup) in bigger boats,” Ficker said. “Big, macho boats. Like 90-footers. Then they’d get all the really big spenders involved. It would just take it further out of the amateur class.”
Which is what Ficker says disturbs him most with the America’s Cup today: the loss of amateurism.
“The big difference (between the campaigns of the 1970s and ‘80s) is that in 1970, it was strictly an amateur sport,” Ficker said. “There really was no money involved. We didn’t even want to consider (accepting) money or gifts.”
“If an airline company offered you a ticket, you wouldn’t accept it. The reason being that you just didn’t want to be a hired skipper.
“I’d like to think the America’s Cup could go back to (having) more emphasis placed on the sport itself,” he said. “But the professional and economic emphasis placed on the event is just overwhelming the sport. You start losing out on the fun.”
Times staff writer Rich Roberts contributed to this story.