Yachting: Brash newcomer set to test Kiwis

Security is tight round AmericaOne's California compound where SUZANNE McFADDEN saw a hot Cup challenger launched.


SAN PEDRO - Paul Cayard searched the cloudless California sky for spies yesterday before he launched his new America's Cup boat.

Every day for three days before yesterday's unveiling, a red and white helicopter had buzzed the AmericaOne compound, always around noon.

"Who are they, Team New Zealand or Prada?" Cayard laughed.

There was no sign of suspicious aircraft over the San Pedro base yesterday, as the grey and lime green USA49 was lowered into the sea from a massive dry dock.

Tight security is not a question in this part of town. The barbed wire fence around the base is not so much to keep out the snoops, but keep in the neighbours - inmates of two San Pedro prisons next door.

Even when it seemed safe, AmericaOne - predicted by many to be the hottest of the challengers - were not about to let their guard down in the searing heat yesterday.

The skirts weren't lowered to give a hint of USA49's brash artwork to the 500 onlookers until she was well and truly in the water.

Plenty of foreign accents could be picked up in the crowd. Among them were two Kiwis - Sean Clarkson, who worked for the New Zealand challenge in 1992 and Chris Dickson's syndicate in 1995, and Morgan Trubovich, who was a young shore crew guy for Team New Zealand last time around.

Word around the dry dock yesterday had it that they are soon to be joined in the AmericaOne crew by another New Zealander - world No 2 matchracing skipper Gavin Brady, who left the rival America True syndicate last summer.

If there were any spies among the spectators, they were given very little material to take home.

If anything, the dazzling colour scheme was radical - a break from the traditional red, white and blue.

"Italians think green on a boat is bad luck," said the French-Italian-American, who has made the last two finals of the America's Cup. "But I'm not into that. I'm into making my own history and tradition."

The boat herself is very different from the '95 generation cup yachts made in America - but not unlike the victorious Black Magic boats of four years ago.

She has a very open deck at the aft of the boat, her steering wheels are almost in the middle, and her mast is thicker.

And, like many of the 1999 cup fraternity, she is very narrow. Onlookers guessed she would have been only around 3.2m across at her widest point.

Who knows what her sister ship, USA61, will look like - she is still in the infancy stages of construction, and probably won't be ready for the first couple of rounds of the Louis Vuitton challenger series.

Both sail numbers hold special meaning to Cayard. USA49 was the number given to the first America's Cup boat from his St Francis Yacht Club in 1987, and USA61 was the boat Cayard raced in Fremantle.

San Pedro was an old fishing village once settled by Portuguese - today it is a huge shipping port. Monster container ships towered over the tiny yacht as they passed.

Cayard chose this place, ahead of his home waters of San Francisco, because he says it has one of the most stable meteorological systems on the US west coast.

"A north-westerly blows here every day. If we sail off Newport Beach we get eight knots of wind. If we sail up to Palos Verdes, it's always 20 knots," he said. "We can sail six or seven hours a day in whatever conditions we choose."

Cayard is in no hurry to leave this place and get to Auckland. His projected arrival date is October 1 - just over a fortnight from the first race.

"I'm not a New Zealand native, but I've been there enough times to know that the conditions are not conducive for productive work at this time of year," he said. "We're better off doing it all here."