At the Worlds, Murray Has Designs Only on Surveillance : Sailing: Spirit of Australia designer is spying on the opposition. “We can pick up a lot by watching,” he says.

He was spanked by Dennis Conner in the 1987 America’s Cup and ripped by Bill Koch this week at the International America’s Cup Class World Championship.

Australia’s Iain Murray, however, is on the prowl for the last word.

Murray, designer for the Spirit of Australia syndicate and the inspiration behind the new class of boat racing off San Diego, has come here--binoculars in hand--to spy on the opposition.

While saying he’s short on funds to compete this week, there’s suspicion in sailing circles that all the money in the world wouldn’t have put Murray in the water for the Worlds.

Money was no problem in 1986-1987 when Murray skippered Kookaburra III against Conner in Fremantle but, like Conner, Murray stayed shore-side during the pre-Cup 12-meter World Championship.

In a sport where paranoia runs as deep as the sea, Murray excels. While Japan, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and a pair of U.S. entries match boat designs and wits in daily competition, Murray sees it all and shows them nothing.

“That’s obviously part of it,” said Murray, “but whether that makes the others nervous or not, I couldn’t tell you. I hope it does.

“We can pick up a lot by watching. For example, you can see the way the boat goes through the waves. We probably get a better idea than they do. We can look at their boat and we can look at the opposition’s boat and watch them side-by-side.”

And what has Murray learned so far?

“I think anyone who didn’t regard the Kiwis as a major threat to the America’s Cup after 1987 was selling them short,” Murray said. “Obviously the Italians are very well financed and organized, and they have some very talented people. They’re going to be a threat, too.

“Dennis Conner, I think, has shown a great burst of boat speed. And given a bit of time to get his operation fully rolling, Dennis is a front-runner as well. So I don’t think there’s any real surprises here this week.

“I don’t think you’ll see many of the boats out there this week in the America’s Cup trials. I think the surprises are yet to come.”

And that would include Murray’s own boat. Murray and associates have focused their long-lensed cameras on this week’s racing from helicopters and press boats. Notes are being taken and ideas stolen and, voila, the one-and-only Spirit of Australia.

“We started building our boat two weeks ago and the plan for the boat is to be finished in September,” Murray said. “We’ll sail in Sydney until Nov. 10 and then transport the boat on a ship Nov. 15 and be here the first week of December.

“The syndicate will be based in Mission Bay while here and we’ll have only one boat. One boat, one tender, one crew. We don’t have a lot of money, but we’ve got enough to build our boat.”

What Murray lacks in funds, he has in knowledge. He was the first one to go to work on this America’s Cup challenge because the boat dimension guidelines chiefly were of his own making.

“The purpose of the America’s Cup rule was to try and bring the designs of the hulls much closer together to try and put a greater emphasis on the performances of the crew,” Murray said. “Once you get onto the playing field, the crew is going to be the winning factor more than anything else.

“It seemed like the people involved in the America’s Cup wanted a new boat that would provide interesting and good racing in San Diego. The America’s Cup is the hardest trophy to win, and most people believed it to be the pinnacle of racing and represented the highest technology in sailing.

“Quite clearly, the 12-meters didn’t do it. The philosophy was to upgrade the boats and pick the boats that are the hardest to sail. That is a requirement of the America’s Cup.”

For some, apparently, they have been too hard to sail. Koch, chairman of the America-3 syndicate, said earlier this week that the experts who dreamed up the new IACC yacht were “idiots.”

“Bill Koch’s comments really display a certain lack of experience in the America’s Cup,” Murray said. “To call the group of people that were involved in this rule a bunch of idiots, I think is really putting himself in a corner that he’ll probably regret one day.”

There has also been criticism that this new class of boats is too expensive and has priced some competitors out of racing.

“It’s expensive if you want to go out and buy everything,” Murray said. “If you want to go and compete with (Italy’s) Raul Gardini and do the things he’s doing, it’s quite expensive. If they took the America’s Cup back to the original context of representing their country with their people and product, it might not cost them so much.

“All we want to do is produce a fast boat and go in the race. And to do that we don’t need lots of boats, we don’t need lots of dock, we don’t need lots of fast cars. If we go to sleep in hammocks in the trees, we’ll do that. We just need a fast boat and a good crew.”

For now, a good pair of binoculars will do just fine.