Q&A; WITH MICHAEL FAY : Fay Playing David Against U.S. Goliath

Two women had bicycled to the pier in hopes of seeing the New Zealand, the 133-foot monohull that will oppose one of the Stars & Stripes catamarans next month for the America’s Cup.

But the boat had just left the dock. So had most of the journalists, who once again heard Michael Fay, the New Zealand chairman, call the race a mismatch.

Fay was still at the dock, though, and in the two women he found a new audience.

“Do you ladies know what this race will be like?” he asked. “Why, it will be like you two racing your bicycles against motorbikes.”

Fay, 39, an international investment banker, has also said that he considers the Sail America foundation, which is managing San Diego Yacht Club’s Cup defense, and Stars & Stripes, the American racing team, to be virtually the same entity. During a recent interview, he consistently interlinked the two groups, though the two say they are separate.

Question: When you submitted your challenge to the Americans 13 months ago, how did you expect them to react?

Answer: We hoped that, OK, some people will see it as upsetting their plans (for a full-scale, 12-meter Cup regatta in 1990 or 1991), but we were convinced that more would see that to have a big-boat regatta before 1991 was a great opportunity. We hoped things would cool down, that people would study it and say, ‘Let’s talk.’

Unfortunately, the challenge was perceived as a threat. And in all the time I’ve been here, no one’s ever been able to say it was a threat to the Cup. The (Kiwi) boat is generally considered to be the best thing to come along to the Cup in a number of years. Why not 1988? Why not big boats?

What has happened is people have said, “This doesn’t suit our plans. This doesn’t give us time to set up the facilities. This doesn’t give us the number of syndicates we want here.”

Never once have I heard anybody relate (the challenge) to the quality of sailing, to the opportunity for designers, to the opportunity for sailors, to the competition on the water. They’ve all been about big bucks.

Quite frankly, I think the difference between us and Sail America is, we’re trying to win the Cup, they’re trying to sell it. We’re talking big boats, they’re talking big bucks. Right from the start, their attitude was they were not going to meet the challenge.

Q: Your syndicate initially considered challenging with a catamaran, right?

A: Yep. Any designer in the world who would stop for a minute and think about a fast boat would think of a catamaran. We talked to our rules people and we looked at the Deed of Gift and we felt the deed didn’t contemplate catamarans--so we questioned the legality.

Also, we didn’t think they were good boats for match racing, didn’t see that they fit into any tradition of the Cup, and we didn’t think they were the right boats for the future of the Cup. Why can’t the defender answer with a catamaran? Simple, because we didn’t challenge with one. Whether it might or not be legal has not been resolved.

Q: How do you think history will judge your challenge--as a hostile one that scotched the defender’s plans, or as an attempt to begin a new big boat era?

A: What’s wrong with a hostile challenge? When you win the America’s Cup, you only win the right to defend it. You don’t win the right to stage a benefit concert for San Diego, for Sail America, for Dennis Conner.

We’re the first challenger to come. We have the right to initiate a match. We have the right to nominate a boat, a right to a final decision. What’s wrong with our challenge, in terms of the Cup? The tradition? The Deed?

As for history, I think a lot will depend on this match, what happens in the next match. This is the most exciting boat built for a long, long time. I think an enormous number of people will be disappointed if this isn’t the wave of the future of the Cup. When the defender stops talking about trying to plan the Cup, he might be a little more in line with what it’s all about. It’s about defending it.

Q: You commissioned a poll that found that 53% of the American public considers a race between a catamaran and a monohull unfair. How do you think Americans would have responded to the contention that your challenge was hostile and not in the interest of a multi-national Cup?

A: I think if you put the facts in front of the American public, I think they would vote even more overwhelmingly in favor of the Kiwis. But you’ve got to keep the record book straight. Sail America has recently created the impression that I’ve kept other people out of the series. Not true. New Zealand has fought all the way through this for the right for other countries to sail off. . . . We agreed to sail Britain, Canada, France, Japan--anybody, and if they beat us, they took our place.

Most people don’t understand that the reason there are no other countries here is that Sail America wouldn’t agree to sail them. Twice, New Zealand has offered to delay the regatta, to give everybody, challengers and defenders, the chance to build a boat and participate.

Sail America has said the reason why we challenged in this boat is that we had one ready before we challenged. That’s a totally inaccurate statement. It’s hard now, a year on, to divorce some very inaccurate statements from Sail America aligning me with the Japanese and Pearl Harbor, with stabbing them in the back.

Q: You have said you will protest to the New York Superior Court again after the race. What would you hope to achieve in court?

A: We will argue that the defender is not a qualified defender against a monohull challenger. My most desirable outcome is two out of three on (the water). But, in court, it would be more a matter of discussing a consensus amendment, whether it would be necessary to clarify the Deed. I don’t think it is, personally, but it would be worth it to ask.

Q: It has been estimated your syndicate has spent $16 million dollars, in American currency. Is that accurate?

A: It’s been about $12 million. We originally planned about $8-10 million. I’ve paid lawyers more than I ever wanted to pay them in my life.

Q: Australian businessman and yachting chairman Alan Bond secured a large loan through contacts he made at the Cup. Do you think the publicity you have received since making your challenge will make this financially worthwhile for Michael Fay, the international investment banker?

A: I doubt it. I think those things are overrated. In all the time I was in Fremantle, (Australia for the 1987 Cup regatta) I never handed out a business card and I never did any business directly as a result of that. The same applies here. No one has ever rung me up and said, “Look, I want to do business with your bank because you were in the America’s Cup.”

Q: Could your statements that this is a mismatch decrease interest and revenues?

A: First and foremost this is a yachting event, an America’s Cup match, or supposed to be. I haven’t sold my boat, I haven’t sold my soul in the America’s Cup. I don’t have to deliver to Marlboro and Pepsi-Cola and everybody else.

Dennis Conner and Sail America have sold their whole act. They have to deliver. That’s fine. That’s their business. But don’t compromise the regatta. Don’t try to set it up to suit sponsors and don’t, please, melt the America’s Cup into pieces of silver.

Q: You have said that Dennis Conner, the man whom (Australian) skipper John Bertrand said would wipe an opponent off the face of the Earth if given the chance, might sandbag during this race. Why?

A: I think he’s got to. Dennis Conner can see the big picture the same as anybody else. Dennis Conner knows his boat is under protest. I have heard Dennis Conner’s side, Sail America, say the catamaran is not too fast.

John Bertrand, or anyone else who has sailed against Dennis Conner, would find it impossible that Dennis Conner’s boat would be not too fast. His whole objective is to make his boat so fast that it will run the other man over. This time, to do it, he has moved around the rules and brought an illegal boat. I don’t think he can go out there and win by an hour, an hour and a half, because everybody will say, “What was that all about? It was a mismatch.”

Q: So he will make it close?

A: Dennis Conner will make it close. He has got such a speed advantage and he is competent enough to get out there and dominate the course of the race.

I put on a bet here that Dennis Conner will sail behind us on a few occasions, give the Kiwis the lead.

So he’s going to make it look close and keep the margin as close as it suits him, to make sure people get the impression that it’s a close race.

Q: Seems you have put him in a no-win situation. You will protest if it’s a blowout, you will say he sandbagged if it’s close. Or you will win.

A: Dennis Conner, in the big picture, might have put himself in a no-win situation. I don’t think the catamaran is a winner. I think there is no victory. I don’t think you need an America’s Cup to prove a catamaran is faster than a monohull.

Q: What do you think most Americans’ perception of Michael Fay is?

A: I don’t know. Sail America’s policy has been to make me look like a whinger (a Kiwi term), a moaner, a groaner. I think there is a perception that I kept out other challengers. That is not true, I’ve encouraged them.

A lot of people approach us here as a team and wish us good luck. I think that may reflect an underlying feeling. I think people like what the New Zealanders are doing. They know we are friendly and are sportsmen first. I think their is a lot of appreciation and support for the New Zealanders.

Q: Will you be involved in New Zealand’s next campaign for the Cup?

A: First, I want to win this one. The last four years, there’s only been four months when when I haven’t been campaigning for the America’s Cup.