Cayard Defends New AC Regs

Marin County’s Paul Cayard, CEO of Artemis Racing, shared some interesting opinions on the 34th America’s Cup with Tom FitzGerald in last Friday’s SF Chronicle. In case you missed it, here are some highlights:

"San Francisco is one of the windiest venues in the world. But that’s a good thing if you’ve got the right tool for it. It’s a horrible thing if you’ve got the wrong tool. Right now we’ve got the wrong tool.

"We knew [that the AC72s were dangerous] for a long time, and we probably never really as an event grabbed that reality enough and did something about it.

"The fact that this [the review of safety recommendations] is happening might save five other people’s lives."

[The elements to have the best America’s Cup ever are] "all right around us. We can touch them. If we’d just had the AC45s [the smaller cats used in the AC World Series for two years] we’d be beating the teams off with a stick. We’d have more entries than the place could hold, and we’d have all their markets. . . if China was racing, we’d have Chinese media, Chinese internet. (South) Korea, France would be in it. Great Britain would be in it. Germany. Every country would be racing in it. My guess is they’d have to limit (the field) to 12."

And finally, "It’s just too expensive of a competition."

Mind you, Cayard is not some whimpy guy who has spent all his life daysailing. He won the ’96-’97 Whitbread Around the World Race with EF Language, during which time he earned the unusual reputation as a skipper who didn’t hesitate going to the bow in the worst conditions when the rest of the crew needed help. He later finished second in 2006 Volvo Around the World Race with Pirates of the Caribbean.