Sailing in Marin: Hall-of-famer Cayard takes another shot at America's Cup with Swedish Artemis team

FOR A GUY who has achieved the highest awards in the sport of sailing, Paul Cayard must have just a small degree of frustration that the one prize that he's not been able to capture is the America's Cup.

The 52-year old, who was recently inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame, has a string of accolades behind him and has competed in events ranging from Round the World to the Olympics. But the Kentfield resident says he's still got plenty to achieve in the sport and he's working on it.

First, he'd like to win the America's Cup.

"I've been in the finals twice, I've won the Louis Vuitton Cup (the selection series for the America's Cup) and have pretty much knocked on the highest door without winning the Cup so that's what I'm looking forward to," said the former full-time helmsman. "That's my project and my passion, that's where I'm investing myself."

Cayard is CEO of the Swedish team Artemis Racing, representing the Royal Swedish Yacht Club and the challenger of record for the 34th America's Cup which will be held in San Francisco in 2013. His Marin home is a long way from where he's spending most of his days managing team activities in Valencia, Spain, and in Sweden with the construction of the Team's AC72, the massively powerful catamaran that will be raced in the 2013 event, known as AC34.

With the inaugural 2011 America's Cup World Series events over, Cayard has had time to reflect on the value of the series relative to AC34. Designed to get teams up to speed racing fast multihulls on short courses, the ACWS is also a way to keep sponsors and fans interested between actual America's Cup events which can be three to four years apart.
But it's been a tough job to both recruit teams and organize the ACWS in a short period of time — less than a year — during these difficult economic times. And, points earned during these events don't even count toward the Louis Vuitton Cup or the America's Cup in 2013.

Nonetheless Cayard thinks ACWS is an important product for sponsors and event promotion.

"The teams need a road show — what's the road to the America's Cup? What's the visibility? How do they get the sponsors?" Cayard said. "Having a circuit that's identified that the teams and their sponsors can count on, and that the public can watch on the internet, TV or in person is great."

On the water, the World Series events have been useful for Artemis Racing.

"We had some weaknesses that we identified in the first regatta in Cascais and the team worked really hard on that — mainly the reaching speed on the first leg after the start," he said. "They conquered that and were on a good run in Plymouth, winning the fleet racing part of the event."

His team has the skill level and speed, he says, and now needs to work on consistency, which has been a challenge because they chose to rotate crew, something that rival teams Oracle Racing didn't need to do because they've been training with two AC45 boats, and Emirates Team New Zealand simply never does.

"It's not that easy to move people around," Cayard said. "What presently separates Oracle and Team New Zealand is that they're a little more consistent with their performance and we need to attain that same level. But now we have eight experienced crew and in some ways we'll be wealthier for that."

Artemis recently acquired a second AC45 boat, which will be a different way to get the crew exposure.

"We'll have 10 guys sailing without having to rotate which we'll start doing in January," Cayard said. He plans to steer the new AC45 during February training before handing off to alternate helmsman Santiago Lange.

All teams are working on hard AC72 boat builds at present and, while he wouldn't divulge Artemis' design strategy with all good reason, Cayard did remind that these new boats are 30 percent bigger and more powerful than the previous Version 5 boats.

The wing alone is huge, at about 125 feet in height, and boats will be sailed with just 11 crew compared to 16 previously. To make matters more intense, all that is put on a San Francisco Bay course that's very short — the legs are going to be about two miles between Blackaller Buoy and Alcatraz with a downwind leg that's less than five minutes.

"That equation alone makes it about twice as hard as it used to be," Cayard said. "You do a hoist and deploy the gennaker, do a couple of jibes, you have to furl on every jibe, re-deploy, do all the boards — all in five minutes. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that the handle-ability of this seriously overpowered boat, which is undercrewed on an extremely short course in the windiest venue in the world, equals a real fight on your hands."

Cayard agrees that the bay is a place he's definitely comfortable sailing, but remains modest about any advantage growing up here may lend.

"I've tried to help our design team understand the sea and wind characteristics of San Francisco," he said. "I know what it means to sail there in July-August and how relentless the winds are, but I wouldn't say it's a huge advantage."

I guess we'll have to wait and see.