Going Overboard : Cayard Joins Italians, Tries to Take America’s Cup From America

Paul Cayard is not the first sailor to jump ship. He’s not even the most famous.

In 1492, before bowsprit controversies and ballast bulbs, Italian Christopher Columbus opted for a Spanish syndicate to finance what turned out to be, really, the first America’s Cup.

Five-hundred years later, skipper Cayard finds himself sailing similar political waters as he prepares the Italian challenger, Il Moro di Venezia, for battle against America 3 in the America’s Cup finals.

Cayard. That’sa notta Italiano.

Not even close. Cayard’s father is of French descent. Cayard, in fact, was born and raised in San Francisco. He played basketball at Crestmoor High in San Bruno and led the team in knee burns.

Cayard is all American.

“I hate to lose,” he said this week. “I’m a scrapper and a fighter.”

And if he is not already the best sailor in the world, Cayard is on the short list.

Jerry Kirby, a former shipmate of Cayard’s but now bowman for the opposition on America 3, minces few words.

“As a competitor,” he said, “he’s an assassin. If it was football, he’d be Joe Montana. I mean, he’s that good.”

Cayard’s assignment in the week ahead? To beat the barnacles out of his own country.

The U.S.A.

Don’t think that hasn’t kept him up nights. As much as it’s about sailing, the America’s Cup is also about penny-ante politics and million-dollar mind games.

Cayard is not above the fray. To reach the finals, he rallied Il Moro from a 3-1 deficit last week, winning the series from New Zealand, 5-3.

Some are convinced that Cayard’s incessant hammering of the Kiwis about the team’s use of the controversial bowsprit might have led to a psychological breakdown by the New Zealanders.

You judge: New Zealand was ahead, 4-1, when its fourth victory was annulled because of questions regarding the bowsprit, setting up a remarkable four-race ambush by Cayard and Il Moro.

But treason is another thing. Bill Koch, the money-man behind America 3 , loves to get under Cayard’s skin.

“I’m going to sail for America,” Koch boasted recently. “It’s hard for me to imagine holding an Italian green card.”

Koch has called Cayard a “hired gun.” Dennis Conner of Stars & Stripes refers to the practice of manning another country’s ship as “rent-a-skipper.”

Cayard’s wife, Icka, said the taunts used to bother her husband.

“He worried about what was going to happen,” she said.

No more.

Cayard has been sailing for Il Moro and owner Raul Gardini since 1984. Cayard knows he is not a mercenary in search of a quick payoff.

Italy courted him. To sail for Il Moro in the America’s Cup, Cayard lived in Italy for two years to establish residence.

Sailing for America was Cayard’s first choice. He narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic team in 1984 and ’88. He was a crewman for his mentor, the late Tom Blackaller, on America’s Cup ventures in 1983 and ’87.

But Cayard is foremost a sailor. In a perfect world, he would leave the money and hype at the dock and take on all comers in dinghies in the doldrums.

The closest thing to such purity in sailing is the stripped-down star class, in which Cayard won the world title in 1988.

“If you want to find out who is the best sailor in the world, that’s what I would do,” he said. “You’d do it 10 times a year and you’d find out who the best sailor is.”

But the America’s Cup, for all its headaches, is the sailor’s plum.

Cayard wants it almost as much as he wants to breathe. Truth is, there is barely enough American interest in the Cup to support an effort by the folk-hero Conner, who put up a valiant fight against America 3 on a shoestring budget and one determined but underfunded boat.

Imagine the yawns Cayard would have provoked at black-tie fund raisers.

So Cayard said ciao.

Nationalism has its place. When the Australians shockingly seized the Cup from America in 1983, the United States rallied ‘round the flagpole and cheered the Cup’s return in 1987 when Conner defeated the Aussies and Kookaburra III.

But life isn’t always a John Wayne movie.

“The world is growing to be one small place,” Cayard said. “With the airplane travel, the fax machine, the telephone, the computer, the modem. All this stuff is about reducing distances. . . . I don’t want to let myself be restricted by lines on a map, or passports, or other things.”

Sailing, he said, has no boundaries. Sailing is about the best skippers competing against one another.

Cayard’s relationship with Italy was nurtured over time. Cayard first caught the eye of Gardini, he of the Ferruzi family empire, at the Sardinia Cup in 1984.

Gardini lured Cayard to his helm and, in 1988, they teamed to win the Maxi-boat Worlds championship aboard Il Moro di Venezia 3.

And then Gardini set his sights on the America’s Cup.

Cayard thinks nationalism charges by Koch are attempts to unnerve him.

“My perception is that people respect me for trying to achieve the highest level of success in my sport that I can,” he said. “There’s always a nationalistic side, that’s part of the game. But the America’s Cup is a challenge between yacht clubs that happen to be located in various countries.”

Before Cayard, Italy had few Sinbads when it came to sailors. There were more snickers than concerns when the Italians mounted their first America’s Cup challenge in 1983.

And the 1986-87 campaign was a disaster. One of the boats posted a 4-30 record in competition. Another sank in the Adriatic when someone forgot to secure an anchor crane.

The Italians became better known at America’s Cups for their wild parties.

Cayard changed that. Italians, in turn, had no problem with a foreigner running their Cup campaign. No more problem than they had when Argentina’s Diego Maradona joined their national soccer team.

“It’s not something new,” Luca Bontempelli, a reporter for Gazzetta Sports in Milan, said. “I mean, he’s wearing our shirt.”

In Italy, that’s amore.

Cayard, in fact, was more respected than most.

“Everyone in Italy knows (Cayard) doesn’t make a very high salary, probably 1,000 times less than Maradona,” Bontempelli said. “There’s not a feeling that Cayard is doing this for money. The feeling is that he’s doing this because it’s his life.”

Cayard is very well compensated--Gardini reportedly pays him $500,000 a year--but he is rooted in common stock.

The Cayards were not a sailing family. Paul’s youth was not one of privilege, teas and turtlenecks. His father, Pierre, built scenery sets for the San Francisco Opera.

Cayard started sailing when he was 7 at the encouragement of a friend. Cayard’s dad built his son’s first sailboat but wasn’t really keen on Paul making a career of sailing.

Cayard, though, proved a natural. He loved other sports, basketball in particular, but had a difficult time controlling his emotions.

“Sailing is not a physical sport,” he said. “Sometimes I wish it was. As a basketball player, I fouled out of about a third of all my varsity team’s games.”

Cayard still has a basket over his garage door at his San Diego home. In the early morning hours last Thursday, hours before Il Moro eliminated New Zealand, Icka Cayard heard a thumping sound on the driveway.

She found Cayard outside, alone, shooting baskets.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Therapy,” Paul said.

Cayard shot up through the junior sailing circuit at the St. Francis Yacht Club, piloting el toros, fireballs, snipes and lasers. At 15, he overstated his weight by 20 pounds, claiming to be 175, and talked his way onto a crew led by Gordon Danielson, a local fireball sailor. They teamed to win the 1976 North American championship.

But Cayard did not really come of age until he was 18, when he joined forces with Blackaller, a Bay Area sailing legend. More than 20 years Cayard’s senior, Blackaller was quite the character--crusty, crude, sharp-tongued and cantankerous. He lived a rogue sailor’s life and took Cayard along for the ride.

“When I was 18 and he was 40, we were very similar,” Cayard said. “We were both just as wild, we both spent just as much time partying, and just as much time chasing women. We were the same. But he was 40.”

They managed to squeeze in some sailing, though, and Blackaller showed Cayard the ropes. Blackaller wasn’t a patient sailor. He screamed and cursed and had little tolerance. He shot from the lip and the hip.

But although Cayard idolized Blackaller, but did not imitate him. Rather, he took pieces of his mentor’s style and developed his own. Cayard, in contrast to Blackaller, is a meticulous organizer and tactician.

Blackaller, it has been said, sailed by the seat of his pants.

Still, Cayard did take on some of Blackaller’s rage.

“Tom was extreme and fiery,” John Kolius, a fellow sailor and longtime friend of Cayard, said. “He tries to control it, but sometimes it’s better left uncontrolled. When he does that, he’s very effective. . . . Tom probably sailed better when he was mad, and I think Paul sails a little better when he’s mad.”

A case in point was 1988 at the Maxi-boat World Championships. Before the race, competitors Jim Kilroy and Conner tried to mess with Cayard’s mind. Just as Cayard was about to shove off, Kilroy told Cayard he was going to file a protest over the new mainsail Cayard recently installed, claiming it was not properly registered.

You could almost see the steam blowing from Cayard’s ears.

While the other boats hurried to the starting line, Cayard ordered his crew to hoist the old mainsail. Then he took off after Conner and Kilroy.

“He peeled them off the line and went on to win the race,” said Kirby, then a member of Cayard’s crew. “He doesn’t rattle easily.”

Cayard rattled in 1989, though, when Blackaller died suddenly of a heart attack while racing cars in the Bay Area.

“He was very quiet, very sad,” Icka said. “Even now when he thinks about him, he gets very quiet, he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Icka didn’t like Blackaller at first. She wasn’t thrilled about sharing Cayard with a known chaser.

Icka and Paul met in 1981 at a regatta in Los Angeles. She is the daughter of Pelle Petterson, a legendary Swedish sailor. They were married in 1985 and have two children, Daniel, 3, and Alexandra, 2.

“I did not like that he had all these young girlfriends,” Icka said of Blackaller. “That was not comfortable for me, to have Paul hanging around that. But I also think if you have a relationship you have to trust each other.”

Blackaller reportedly mellowed before death. He remarried and settled down.

“I think Paul took the good qualities of Tom,” Icka said. “Just to be able to speak up, to say what you think and not be afraid. I think people respect Paul more because of that. He’s not afraid. He does not hold back. He doesn’t talk behind the back of a person. He says everything, good things and bad things.”

Icka said the recent rush of reporters probing the relationship between Cayard and Blackaller has been helpful to her husband.

“He’s gotten a lot out of him that he’s been holding in,” she said.

Cayard speaks of Blackaller with reverence.

“He had a lot of influence on my life in every aspect,” Cayard said. “That’s what everyone’s life is like. There are always one or two very key people in everybody’s life who make you what you are. Blackaller was certainly the most influential person in my sailing life.”

The Italian campaign, which began 3 1/2 years ago, has been taxing for Cayard and his family. Icka has seen little of her husband during his quest. Both their children were born when sails were up.

And during the recent bowsprit episode with New Zealand, Cayard was sleeping only two or three hours a night.

Icka and Paul do not talk about sailing at home. For updates, she attends her husband’s news conferences.

“It’s not just being a sailor’s wife,” she said. “It’s any sport. You either follow them around or you have to be alone.”

Cayard, at least, has sailing to release the pressure.

“I am much more nervous than he is,” she said.

Cayard has a quick, absorbent mind. He speaks English, Italian and French. But not Swedish. He and Icka broke up for a period early in their relationship because she didn’t speak enough English.

That was the Blackaller in him.

“He was frustrated,” she said. “He’s very talkative and I’m very quiet.”

Cayard, oddly, does not read books. Well, he’s trying to get through one.

“He has a book by Dennis Conner on his night table,” Icka said. “But it’s been there for a long time. Right now he’s probably too tired.”

There isn’t much available space in the life of a man who is at once trying to quiet public criticism and become the world’s greatest sailor.

Some think he’s already earned the title.

“People have called Dennis Conner ‘Houdini,’ ” Kirby said. “Cayard is Houdini squared. He can take a slow boat and win with it, he’s that good.”

If Cayard is as good as Kirby says, Kirby will end up on the loser’s dock and America will lose the Cup for the second time since the race’s inception in 1851.

All because of an American from San Francisco with Italian ties.

Another Joe Montana?

Not so fast.

“I haven’t won four Super Bowls yet,” Cayard said.

Il Moro di Venezia Starting Crew

Name: PAUL CAYARD Position: Skipper/Helmsman Age: 32 Hometown: San Francisco Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Steers the boat, has last call on tactics and maneuvers. Aggressive, organized, in charge.

Name: ENRICO CHIEFFI Position: Tactician Age: 29 Hometown: Marina di Carrara Occupation: Test coordinator On-board-duties: Plots moves in relation to other boat, offers suggestions to helmsman.

Name: TOMMASO CHIEFFI Position: Strategist Age: 31 Hometown: Marina di Carrara Occupation: Crew manager On-board-duties: Watches overall picture, especially changing wind conditions, and coordinates crew work on boat

Name: ROBERT HOPKINS Position: Navigator Age: 32 Hometown: Manchester, Mass. Occupation: Technical coordinator On-board-duties: Uses laser rangefinder and computers to keep track of position of boat in relation to other boat and next mark.

Name: ANDREA MURA Position: Mainsail trimmer Age: 28 Hometown: Cagliari Occupation: Italian national team On-board-duties: Works with helmsman to maintain proper trim of sail, which is felt directly in the steering.

Name: LORENZO MAZZA Position: Starboard trimmer Age: 35 Hometown: Florence Occupation: On-board systems On-board-duties: Directs grinders for proper trim of headsails when on port tack.

Name: LUCA DIGNANI Position: Port trimmer Age: 25 Hometown: Civitanova Marche Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Directs grinders for proper trim of headsails when on starboard tack.

Name: DANIELE BRESCIANO Position: Grinder Age: 32 Hometown: Viareggio Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Provides turning power to coffee-grinder winches that trim and hoist sails.

Name: MASSIMO GALLI Position: Grinder Age: 29 Hometown: Novara Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Besides grinding, grinders also help out wherever needed, including gathering in lowered sails, cutting away tangled sails or lines and going overboard to clear kelp.

Name: DAVIDE TIZZANO Position: Grinder-foredeck Age: 24 Hometown: Naples Occupation: Olympic gold medalist On-board-duties: Provides power for headsails, also helps to gather sails or hike out for ballast.

Name: FRANCESCO RAPETTI Position: Grinder-foredeck Age: 27 Hometown: Rapallo, Genova Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Provides power for headsails, also helps to gather sails or hike out for ballast.

Name: MARCO CORNACCHIA Position: Grinder-foredeck Age: 32 Hometown: Bologna Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Provides power for headsails, also helps to gather sails or hike out for ballast.

Name: SANDRO SPAZIANI Position: Pitman Age: 32 Hometown: Ancona Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Keeps myriad lines for sail trim and hoists in order; will help on winches or in preparing new sails to be used.

Name: GABRIELE BASSETTI Position: Pitman assistant Age: 34 Hometown: Genoa Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: Helps Spaziani.

Name: ANDREA MERANI Position: Mastman Age: 30 Hometown: Civitanova Marche Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: In charge of halyards that raise and lower sails; communicates directions from afterguard to foredeck crew.

Name: ALBERTO FANTINI Position: Bowman Age: 33 Hometown: Livorno Occupation: Professional sailor On-board-duties: “The Great Fantini” has performed some remarkable feats, in addition to his usual duties of rigging headsails for hoisting, handling the spinnaker pole and indicating the boat’s position to the helmsman at the starting line.