Paul Cayard talks to Valencia Sailing

It doesn't happen every day to have one of the world's most prominent sailors in our own backyard, so we grabbed this unique opportunity, managed to steal 20 minutes from Cayard's extremely tight schedule in Valencia and talked to him on Friday afternoon at the Desafío Español base:

Valencia Sailing: You have been sailing with Desafío Español for three weeks now. What is your assessment of the team?
Paul Cayard: Desafío Español is a very good team, very homogeneous. I think they have good boats and are prepared and ready to race.

Valencia Sailing: Is the Spanish way of doing things different from yours?
Paul Cayard: Every culture is slightly different, the latin culture is obviously different from the anglosaxon but there isn't one way to do anything in particular. The fact they have achieved so much in this America's Cup means their methodology of work can be successful.

Valencia Sailing: What are your impressions of their brand new yacht, ESP-97?
Paul Cayard: I think ESP-97 is a slight improvement of ESP-88 which is exactly what they had expected. As you know, I'm here together with the team to help optimize this boat even further. What we are trying to do is build its flexibility because what really matters after all is how it performs against the direct competitors of Desafío. We might think it's a good light-air boat but if the other teams have even more light-air oriented boats and we race them on a light-air day we'll have to find a way to be faster in these conditions. Until we see the other teams we will not know really which way we are trying to optimize. For sure we have some ideas based on last year and ESP-88, the team's first new boat.

Valencia Sailing: Does that mean you will race against other teams in training during the month of March?
Paul Cayard: Yes, next week Desafío Español will race against BMW Oracle, Mascalzone Latino Capitalia and probably Luna Rossa. I will not be in Valencia next week but the team will carry out these training matches.

Valencia Sailing: You just talked about Desafío's "director competitors". Who are they?
Paul Cayard: Anybody who's trying to make the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, that means Luna Rossa, Mascalzone Latino Capitalia, Victory Challenge and obviously Emirates Team NZ and BMW Oracle. Maybe the latter two are a little stronger but you really don't know. I think that on any given day any of the top teams can beat each other.

Valencia Sailing: Given this tough competition are the three weeks you will spend in March enough to help the Spanish team? Will your contribution be sufficient?
Paul Cayard: I'm giving what I can and I decided a long time ago I didn't want to be fully involved in the America's Cup. Obviously, if I had come for a year I could have contributed more but it's my personal choice and I have other priorities with my family, so we agreed I would come for a month and this is what I'm doing right now.

Valencia Sailing: Have the wind conditions so far been favorable in order to allow to carry out your job?
Paul Cayard: To be honest, most of the time I've been here we had "Poniente", the local weasterly wind, very unusual for the time the Louis Vuitton Cup will be taking place. It's not exactly what we had been hoping for, we were looking for 8 to 15 knots, which is more typical but we have to make the best use of the available wind.

Valencia Sailing: Coming back to the boat, you have sailed on IACC 1, 61 and now 97. So you have first-hand experience of the beginning, the middle and the latest development of this class of boats. How would you decribe its evolution?
Paul Cayard: The boats are now narrower and look more like a box. I would best describe it as moving from an aircraft carrier to a narrow shoebox. Obviously, a shoebox is faster than an aircraft carrier.

Paul Cayard aboard ESP-97. Valencia, 1 March 2007. Photo copyright Nico Martinez / Desafío Español

Valencia Sailing: Back in 1992, your America's Cup syndicate built 5 new boats since there was no limit on that number. Do you think the current limit to 2 new boats should be abolished?
Paul Cayard: No, I think it's a good rule. I think in general in the America's Cup a lot of money is spent to a degree that could be considered excessive. Money is the big factor in the competition.

Valencia Sailing: Obviously, but this also holds true in all major pro sports.
Paul Cayard: No, that's not always the case. In American football there is a spending cap of 80 million dollars per year per team. So what ends up happening in the NFL is that talent is spread out and you have more competitive games. On any given Sunday San Diego can beat Dallas. By contrast baseball has no spending limit and as a result the New York Yankees always have the best talent in their team because they spend 20 times the amount of money the San Francisco Giants do. Another example is NASCAR car racing as opposed to Formula 1. NASCAR has become extremely popular in the US because basically all cars are very even and there is constant change in the lead. In Formula 1 the 4 richest teams are the ones that always win.

Valencia Sailing: Does that mean you would be in favor of establishing such a spending limit in the America's Cup as well?
Paul Cayard: First of all you should always create rules that are "policeable". Creating rules that are unpoliceable, such as this one, is not a great idea. I think what the public wants to see is a competitive race and it's not exciting to know the outcome of the competition before it even starts. We have 12 teams here in Valencia and if on any given day any of these 12 teams could beat each other that would be the most exciting competition we could have. Obviously, this is an idealistic scenario but some of the excessivenes could be saved. Since having no limit on the number of boats was excessive, I find it very good to have a limit of 2 new boats.

Valencia Sailing: Do you think the nationality rule should be restored in the America's Cup?
Paul Cayard: I think nationality is always a big selling point to the public. When the public doesn't understand a sailboat race because of its rules and complexity the one thing they can latch on to is nationality, patriotism. In Italy sailing is very popular not because everybody understands the rules of sailing but because it's a very patriotic nation and when they see a boat racing with ITA on its sail they refer to it. We have a certain amount of nationality rules right now. The boat has to be constructed in the country of the team, have its national letters on the sail and the flag. If you ask whether there should be more nationalism like there was in the past then my answer is no. I don't think everybody should be from the country of the syndicate. As it is today, the rule is pretty good, as it contains enough nationalism to attract public following and yet allows sailors to be professional.

Valencia Sailing: How much different is an America's Cup campaign from one in the Volvo Ocean Race?
Paul Cayard: They are not completely different. In the America's Cup, mostly because of the available budget and time, each aspect of a campaign is taken into a higher degree of detail. There is more people working for a longer period, whether it's on the design of the boat, its structure, the sails, the mast, the physical training of the crew or any other aspect. In the Volvo Ocean Race, obviously, a well organized team will perform better than other less organized ones, but a great part of the winning takes place based on going the right way, dealing with the weather systems, dealing with damage and breakdowns. A lot of the winning takes place at sea when the crew is not in contact with the support team.

Valencia Sailing: As a sailor which one is more exciting?
Paul Cayard: Just pure sailing, the Volvo Ocean Race is much more exciting. That's one of the first things I noticed coming here back in the America's Cup.

Valencia Sailing: Would you refer to the America's Cup as boring?
Paul Cayard: Sailing an America's Cup yacht is pretty dull. If you are sailor, the motivator in the America's Cup is the pure competition. It's like playing chess. You could be either playing chess or sailing in the America's Cup. It's very similar.

Valencia Sailing: That brings us to the issue of the World Sailing League, the major event you and Russell Coutts announced a few weeks ago in Lisbon. Do you think there is room for another major top sailing event?
Paul Cayard: We obviously think there is, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. We think it will be great for the sport of sailing to have a global circuit of big and very exciting boats. These boats will impress the public when sailing let alone racing. We will have fleet races, all the boats racing together and this will be done at a reasonable cost.

Valencia Sailing: Why did you choose catamarans and not monohulls such as the VOR or AC yachts?
Paul Cayard: We couldn't get the monohulls to go fast enough without being extremely expensive and without having big very draft. The only way to get a monohull to go fast is to have a canting keel, a good technology, but at the same time expensive, complex and fragile. We like the catamaran solution, it is an exciting boat, as well as smart, because you get the stability from the two hulls.

Valencia Sailing: My final question concerns the sport of sailing in general. Since you are a sailing legend and are also trying to set up this new event what is your view on the future of sailing as a sport? Is it getting more popular, is it attracting more people, especially the young, or is it facing increasing competition from other emerging sports like snowboarding, mountain biking or the so called "extreme sports"?
Paul Cayard: I think we can attract more people to participate as well as be fans and spectators of sailing. Those examples you used are exactly what Russell and I have looked at when thinking about the World Sailing League. Snowboarding is now more popular than traditional ski and mountain biking is viewed as "cool". This is why we went with the catamaran. For us sailors the catamaran is non-traditional but we also want the 15-year olds to be attracted to a boat that will be rocked up on one hull going at 30 knots as opposed to something that looks like a slow-motion movie. The WSL has many elements: it's a global circuit, it has a reasonable cost and mainly we hope it's going to be attractive to the average person. The boats will look cool at the dock, really cool when sailing, racing will be close to the public, very close to shore and races will last at most 30 minutes, unlike the usual 2 hours where you fall asleep. It's going to be quick, high-energy, high-impact and exciting.

Paul Cayard aboard ESP-97. Valencia, 1 March 2007. Photo copyright Nico Martinez / Desafío Español