Yachting: All part of a skipper's job

By Suzanne McFadden

Dawn Riley, the first woman to head an America's Cup campaign, is having strange nightmares.

"We didn't have enough food for the boatbuilders on the first day. Two nights later I dreamed the King of Spain came to visit and we didn't have any sandwiches."

Lately, Riley has been sitting bolt upright in her new bed in an Auckland apartment after nightmares about the bulb on America True's keel or the gym training schedule.

It comes with the job. And as the start of the challenger series draws closer, the dreams will probably get worse.

But Riley, the 34-year-old skipper and head of the co-ed America True, is handling it. She believes she is a born boss.

"I love organising. That might mean I'm bossy," she said. "I probably would have been an efficiency expert if I wasn't a sailor. It gets my blood going."

Riley admits being frustrated in her last two cup campaigns when she could not always have her say.

"It was hard when I saw money or time being wasted last time," she said.

So she did something about it, and got her own $US20 million syndicate together.

Riley, who was baptised on a boat when she was one month old, is a gal of firsts.

She was the first woman to sail in a modern-day cup crew, on America3 in 1992, and was the first female skipper of a cup boat, again with America3, in 1995. She is the only woman in the world to have two cup campaigns to her name.

"I guess it's something that's unique. You can't deny that the women's side of sport has really taken off at home [in the United States] after the women's soccer World Cup." (She watched it as she was moving out of her San Francisco apartment - a television set and a coffee table the only furniture left.)

But Riley does not want this campaign to be seen as another novelty. She wants to be remembered for doing things differently.

There is the True Youth programme, where Riley takes up to 10,000 at-risk kids sailing each year. There is the retail store in San Francisco, which sells enough America True hats and tee-shirts to pay for running operations on that side of the world.

There is her decision to move the syndicate to Auckland earlier than everyone else. Where other challengers have shied away from a "wild" winter in Auckland, the Trues have hardly missed a day of sailing on the gulf since they got serious a month ago.

Then the "true" word pops up again: "Our theory of just telling the truth. No fluff. Just 'this is what we are doing.'"

And of course, she would like to win, to be the first one-boat campaign to clinch the cup since two-boat programmes became the trend.

Riley is relieved to make it to Auckland finally. While the new boat was launched here three weeks ago, the boss was in San Francisco doing her desk job.

"I couldn't wait to go sailing. But when I got here, Sunday was a day off, Monday and Tuesday were in the gym and nobody told me Wednesday was an optional day. I was the only one who turned up."

Unlike just about every other skipper in this America's Cup, Riley will not be driving the loud yellow boat. She is more comfortable working the halyards from the pit. She can still yell from there.

At the True base in the cup village, Riley can be seen bleary-eyed in front of a video phone at 5.30 am, talking to San Francisco - and locking the doors again at 9.30 pm to walk home to her apartment uptown.

They are long days, but she knew what she was getting herself into. And she insists on one day off a week.

"I like to completely shut down on Sundays. I play around and cook all day," she said.

Riley could be right. With her new approach, this could be her America's Cup. After all, it is the Dawn of a new millennium.