Paul Cayard

By Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.Com
January 16, 2002

Grant Dalton should send a thank-you note to Larry Ellison. Paul Cayard is flying to Auckland today (Thursday)-not to rejoin Oracle's America's Cupampaign as an active member but to hop aboard Dalton's Amer Sports One for Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race scheduled to start Jan. 27.

Cayard, who led EF Language's Whitbread victory four years ago, replaces tactician Dee Smith, a fellow San Francisco Bay area sailor who is taking the leg off to recuperate from this week's shoulder surgery. Cayard has had the last couple of months off since Ellison jerked him off the boat as director of the sailing team for reasons never explained.

Amer Sports One is currently in second place overall behind Germany's illbruck, which has Cayard's 2000 America's Cup tactician John Kostecki as skipper. Another former mate, Mark Rudiger, is navigator/co-skipper on Assa Abloy, which won Leg 3 from Sydney, via Hobart.

Dalton said, "If I was listening to the news that Paul Cayard had joined Assa Abloy or illbruck I wouldn't have been happy about that. I would say that it strengthened that other team."

Cayard is a director of Nautor Swan, which is owned by his longtime friend Leonard Ferragamo and is backing Amer Sports One and its sister ship, the all-woman Amer Sports Too-which could really use his help. But Dalton asked first.

"Ever since I got, you know, kind of sidelined by Oracle these guys have been calling me from every stopover," Cayard said this week. "They started calling me from Cape Town-both Amer and Assa Abloy. Because of my
affiliation with Nautor, I decided that if they needed me I should sail with them. They did need me now. [Dee] got operated on today and he'll be back for Leg 5, and it fits for me."

Q: You're joining up for a difficult leg, deep into the Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn.

Cayard: "It's fun to go down there. It's extreme. It's hard and it's cold and it's wet, but that's what makes it exceptional."

Q: Is this the toughest leg?

Cayard: "Leg 2 is colder. At least it was last time, but what am I saying? I've only done the race once. Last time Leg 2 was shorter but colder. This leg is longer, so you could say it's harder-and it's even longer than last
time because they've gotta go up to Rio [de Janeiro] instead of Sao Sebastiao [Brazil]."

Q: It was a good leg for you last time when you beat the next boat by three days and 500 miles.

Cayard: "We had it all-fast boat, we sailed real well and we got a huge break when we got to Cape Horn where we just beat a high-pressure system and they all got stuck in it. Too good to be true."

Q: Will you sail any other legs?

Cayard: "Nobody can see the future perfectly, but I've only signed up for this leg and I'd have to get permission-I did get permission-from Oracle to go do this, because I still am under contract.'

Q: Is this like a leave of absence?

Cayard: "Yeah. I'm still an employee of Oracle. They signed a paper saying I had permission to do this."

Q: Then after this leg you'll go back to doing what you've been doing the last couple of months?

Cayard: "Yeah, I'll be back doing . . . I'll be back."

Q: What will you do on the boat different from the last time?

Cayard: "Not much. Grant's got me doing to same role I did with Rudi. Ultimately, Grant is the skipper and can disagree with me and make a different call. But my guess is it will work very compatibly because there is respect there. I hope and think it's not going to be much different than what I did last time-and I imagine they want it to be similar to the job I did last time."

Q: Grant Dalton can be a tough and crusty guy to sail with.

Cayard: "I've never sailed with him. In the dealings I've had with him he's been very straightforward . . . doesn't beat around the bush. That's good. You don't have a lot of hidden agendas. It can be a little harsh, but it's straightforward."

Q: What do you think of Amer One's position at this point?

Cayard: "Very good, all things considered. I'm hoping we can better it, but it's going to be a tall order. We're gonna have to beat Kostecki by a couple of places. That's going to be very hard to do. His boat and his sails-the whole thing-is very developed. But we'll certainly give it a go."

Q: Some of your old EFL mates are on other boats, too

Cayard: "Rudi, Magnus [Olsson] and Klas Nylof are all on Assa. Mark Christensen is on illbruck."

Q: Amer One is the only Frers design. How is it stacking up?

Cayard: "There are a lot of good boats there. Dalton was saying earlier that he thought maybe we had a little stickiness at high speed. I went back to the Volvo Web site and looked at the Leg 2 24-hour runs. You see that on Nov. 18 when the blow came through Amer had the shortest day by about 25 miles. All the Farr boats had between 445 and 460 on that day and Dalton did 425. It could be sails, it could be the boat."

Q: A few weeks ago you were quoted as saying that Amer One's "speed is not earth-shatteringly better than the others, so it doesn't look like a breakthrough boat."

Cayard: "I think that's correct. They say there are a few conditions when the boat is fast, but not when it's real windy--surprisingly, because it's a very beamy boat. Anyway, I'll go down and find out."

Q: That said, the crew must be sailing very well.

Cayard: "On speed they were fifth to Trindade on the first leg, then they hit the south hard and Rudi went up [north] and parked for five days, so they put a load of miles on them there. That was just tactically a very good move. Leg 2 they kind of stayed in fifth. Leg 3 they were way behind coming out of Sydney-they broke a ballast tank-but then they made a hell of a move when the fleet parked at Tasman Island and they went around the
outside and got into Hobart second. Then the rich got richer going to New Zealand. They've done a great job of sailing the boat with what they have, so it will be a tall order to improve the position."

Q: Has it been a tactical race, a speed race, a combination?

Cayard: "So far it's been tactical. Leg 2 was a little more speed, but again Dalton was a hundred miles behind and when they got into the high pressure in the Australian Bight the whole fleet compressed, so they had one more stab at it. Leg 3 was just tactical."

Q: Do the incredibly close finishes present an opportunity for one boat to break away?

Cayard: "When I talked to Dee Smith he was getting me a little worried. Then again, he said, 'It's just a close race and I think we can win the race.' It's possible. Getting out of New Zealand is a little tricky the first three days with light air, whatever, then you finally get far enough south to get into the wind and for eight or nine days you just roar toward Cape Horn.

"That's gonna be high-speed sailing. Someone could stretch out pretty good and get lucky like we did and just leave the fleet-or they could park at Cape Horn. Remember, Brunel caught up from maybe a thousand miles behind, did the end-around and got second on that leg. A lot of times compression happens when you get to a big corner like that.

"Like Dee said to me this morning, you need to be patient and not get too frustrated if they start stretching a little . . . hang on and don't do anything stupid and hope the compression happens again so you get another shot at 'em. That's basically what they did on Legs 1 and 3"

Q: What can you do to help the Nautor women?

Cayard: "I don't know. I'm just trying to help myself right now."

Q: You're going to miss the Super Bowl (Feb. 3).

Cayard: "I won't be sitting on my couch drinking beer, that's for sure."