Yachting: Gloves are off, knives out

By SUZANNE MCFADDEN

Sharpen your claws, muster your venom - the America's Cup has finally got nasty.

It took almost three months for the genteel pleasantries to wear thin and the bitchiness the cup is infamous for to show itself yesterday.

Nippon skipper Peter Gilmour wore a forced grin as he bore the brunt of a tirade from the other challenger skippers - the consequence of Japan's day out on the water with the enemy, Team New Zealand.

Dennis Conner, no less, launched a stream of severe sarcasm directly at Gilmour at a skipper's line-up yesterday.

"Maybe he thinks he's not going to the America's Cup, and he wanted to get a photo sailing against Team New Zealand," Conner began.

"Or did you need a new patio cover and Russell [Coutts] had a spare one in his backyard?

"If you're sailing the New Zealand boat in the defence in 2003, maybe we will understand. Oops, I shouldn't have said that."

Conner referred to Team New Zealand not having "their best boat out there" for the four-hour tune-up with Nippon's Idaten, the Kiwis supposedly using a boat with an experimental keel.

"Later in the day they brought the other black boat out and it thoroughly trashed the boat Peter [Gilmour] raced against," he said. "It's all win, win, win for Team New Zealand."

Known as an amiable Aussie, Gilmour had braced himself for yesterday's barrage, aware that Nippon's decision to ignore an unwritten agreement not to sail with the cup defender had angered and upset the rival challengers about to begin the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals on Sunday.

He had an answer for Conner's prediction on his future employment.

"As for joining Team New Zealand in 2003, I can't see that being a likely scenario. The rivalry between our team and theirs is well documented. It doesn't stretch as far as friendship."

Not one to keep silent, AmericaOne skipper Paul Cayard chimed in too. He reckoned it was a stunt that benefited Gilmour and his crew no more than making the front page of the Herald.

Gilmour: "I'm delighted we got on the front page of the paper."

Continued Cayard: "I'm quite surprised that Peter and Nippon would break the agreement of logic that has existed for quite a long time.

"I'm sure the Kiwis thoroughly enjoyed the day and are grateful for his sportsmanship. I'm surprised it came so early and I'm surprised it was Peter Gilmour."

Gilmour's reply was that Cayard had a world-class helmsman in Kiwi Gavin Brady to tune up against before the semifinals, and the Japanese had no rock-star skipper to drive the second Nippon boat.

America True helmsman John Cutler, who chuckled as he dodged the crossfire, confirmed that Team New Zealand had phoned a couple of times, inviting them out to sail as well.

"We haven't sailed against them. It didn't fit our schedule at the time - that was our thinking."

If their schedule had been different, would the Trues have broken the pact too?

A major dodge from Cutler: "Fortunately it wasn't different."

It still remains a mystery to the other five challengers why Nippon wanted to sail with Team New Zealand, despite Gilmour's efforts to explain. No one seemed to buy his reasoning.

"In the history of modern America's Cups, you can go back 20 years and someone always sailed against the defender," he said. "It was simply a matter of time before someone did this time.

"Why deny a team the opportunity of playing a friendly international just because they're the host team? Why not go up against the best in the world?

"It's something we are very proud to have been able to do. This has become a storm in a teacup."