NOTEBOOK : Hire of Esquier Helps Italy Build a Solid Operation

Laurent Esquier will never steer a boat or trim a sail or call a tack, but no America’s Cup syndicate could go to sea without him.

Esquier is an operations manager, the man who handles the headaches of day-to-day nuts and bolts and blips so the glamour boys can take the credit.

Esquier is French, but worked for New Zealand in the 1986-87 Cup at Fremantle. The Kiwis’ clockwork operation all but stole the show.

This time he’s working for Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia team, whose flashy program has dazzled the field. It’s no coincidence that Esquier keeps winding up with a new and major player. The French could probably use someone like him.

But sailing at this level is a cosmopolitan game where talent is more important than nationality. The latter hasn’t mattered to Esquier’s past two employers--Michael Fay of New Zealand and Raul Gardini, the Montedison industrialist.

“Two totally different personalities,” Esquier says. “Raul Gardini is a very keen and dedicated yachtsman. Michael was not a yachtsman. Michael was a fighter--and a racer.”

Fay probably would agree with that assessment. He might even like it.

Gardini also deserves credit for reaching outside Italy for the missing links that left two previous Italian efforts inadequate in ‘86-87, despite adequate funding. He not only hired America’s Paul Cayard, a world-class sailor with Cup experience, to skipper the boat and manage the overall operation but, on Cayard’s advice, got Esquier to organize and run the shoreside operation and technical whiz Robert Hopkins to do for Il Moro much of what he did for Dennis Conner and Stars & Stripes in ’87.

“We have a couple of things (Italy) didn’t have before,” Esquier says. “First, strong leadership, with Raul Gardini and Paul Cayard. They know where they want to go and how to get there. The second thing is we have enormous resources of Montedison’s technology.”

After remodeling the landmark Driscoll boat yard on Shelter Island under Esquier’s direction, the Italians may have the finest America’s Cup compound ever and, in Esquier’s view, the best possible location--a short run from San Diego Bay to the ocean.

Bill Koch’s America-3 team, currently working off a barge at the 10th Avenue Terminal near the Coronado Bridge, eventually will have a compound next door.

“I guarantee, having the boats here rather than in Mission Bay or farther down San Diego Bay is (added) boat speed,” Esquier said--meaning, the Italians and Koch will spend less time being towed to and from the sea each day and more time testing and tuning.

The Italians also were the first syndicate with two boats in the water when they launched their second last July.

Does all this give them an edge?

“It’s not a race to see who has their compound first,” Esquier said, “and having all the boats is one thing; having the right boats is another.”

In ‘86-87, the New York Yacht Club’s America II effort had three boats before anybody--all too slow. The effort seemed to run out of gas.

“Burnout is a by-product of repetition,” Esquier says. “When you have talent, you don’t have repetition. You have creativity.”

The Il Moro compound will cover about 30,000 square feet. The Nippon Challenge’s compound being rushed to completion at the Knight and Carver boat yard on Mission Bay will have about 45,000 square feet. New Zealand has something in between down near the bridge on Coronado Island.

All will have sail lofts in which to make their own sails--an edge over the teams that will need to deal with outside sailmakers.

The key men in Nippon’s shore-side operation are Roy Dickson, a New Zealand citizen, and Chris Haver, the liaison between Knight and Carver and the syndicate. Dickson’s son Chris is the Nippon skipper and the top-ranked match racer in the world.

Roy Dickson is Nippon’s Laurent Esquier. He designed the compound, which includes a keel pit so the boats may be cradled lower to the ground for maintenance. Haver said the project will have taken 138 days from design to completion, with Dickson and himself fighting through a jungle of state, city and port red tape for permits. Haver gained enormous respect for the elder Kiwi.

“It couldn’t have been done any faster,” Haver said, “and I don’t know of a person who could have done it better. He’s hit wall after wall. Given what he’s been up against--the fees, all the bureaucracy--he’s done the Japanese tremendous service.

“We’ve been at each other’s throats a couple of times, but he’s done a remarkable job.”

One plus was that the project required no dredging, despite the boats’ 14-foot-deep keels. At low tide, they’ll have six inches to a foot to spare.

John Clinton is New Zealand’s Laurent Esquier or Roy Dickson. His problems have been fewer because the Kiwis’ recent experience here for the catamaran fiasco.

Now they have three red boats on site but are sailing only two. Japan’s other syndicate--the poor one, Bengal Bay--had planned to buy the extra one but hasn’t been by to pick it up.

“As far as we know (the agreement) is still on,” Clinton said, “but we aren’t sure.”

Meanwhile, other syndicates have been sniffing around.

“Three or four people have approached us for chartering or buying,” Clinton said.

The Kiwis are featured on ESPN’s monthly Cup program to be repeated at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Among those interviewed is Russell Coutts, the ’84 Olympic Finn champion who is ranked fourth on the world match-racing circuit.

The America’s Cup Trustees Committee, formed in ’88 to keep disputes out of court, will have its first test March 1.

The committee will consider the appeal by challengers that their survivor be allowed to change boats between the trials and the final. Under the Deed of Gift, the defender doesn’t have to declare his boat until the final, and by then, the challengers feel, their best boat will be worn out.

Also, the committee will consider whether the Italians should be allowed to tank-test models outside Italy.

The committee is San Diego Yacht Club Commodore Sandy Purdon, W.H. Dyer Jones of the New York YC and Warren Jones of the Royal Perth YC.