Does K Stand for Killjoy?

By Ezra Bowen

When Skipper Dennis Conner brought home that yachtsman's grail, the America's Cup, from Australia in February, his backers in the San Diego-based Sail America syndicate seemed to have landed a cargo of gold. The cachet of a home- waters defense in 1991 figured to pump $1.2 billion into San Diego.

But hold on a mo', mates. A shrewdly unsettling tack by a New Zealand banker, Michael Fay, aims to sink San Diego's big party. When Fay sent his unconventional fiberglass New Zealand into the elimination series in the last go-around, Conner tweaked the Kiwis, intimating they "wanted to cheat" their way to victory with design legerdemain. Within seven months, Fay had conceived a comeuppance from Down Under.

Since 1958 yachtsmen around the world have informally agreed to compete every three or four years in the roughly 65-ft. boats called 12-meters (the meter designation refers to an abstruse architectural equation to which the craft must conform). But Fay proposed to vie for the Cup in a new 120-ft. K boat, a throwback to the majestic J boats used before World War II. In San Diego's light breezes, her soaring 160-ft. mast and other outsize features could give her a runaway advantage over existing defenders.

The backwinded San Diego crew at first stonewalled the challenge. Then Fay hauled them into court in New York City, home port for the Cup's original deed of gift, with an unexpected ploy. The deed specifies that a challenger may be built any old way, so long as she measures no more than 90 ft. on the waterline, which just happens to be the K boat's dimension. The deed also provides that the Cup is forfeit if the challenge is not met in ten months. After a judge confirmed these conditions two weeks ago, Sail America's Thomas Ehman complained, "Fay is an opportunist who sees the chance to take a billion-dollar industry back to Auckland." Said San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor: "The ruling is un-American."

But last week the Sail America group reluctantly accepted the challenge, amid indications it would seize every rule advantage to dismast the pesky Fay. As the defender, San Diego may choose the contest's locale but will not announce it until 90 days beforehand. Tentative plans are to race the New Zealanders late next summer, then (assuming a victory and no other wild-card ^ challenges) return to using 12-meters for a San Diego regatta in 1991. Meanwhile, the San Diegans are exploring some distinctly un-America's Cuppish designs, notably a "killer mosquito" hydrofoil. They have even suggested that the first defense may be moved from San Diego into the roaring trade winds off Hawaii to frustrate the New Zealander's perceived advantage.

Fay has reacted to such williwaws by shopping serenely for mooring space in Honolulu. Sail America's own designer, John Marshall, claims Fay has every reason for confidence. The few months the U.S. syndicate now has to build a winner is an eye blink in naval architecture. Moreover, the howlers off Honolulu may be just what the canny Fay wants most, says Marshall. "Our preliminary predictions are that Fay's boat will sail over 40 m.p.h. in a fresh breeze." As to reports that Fay fears a mid-Pacific meeting, Marshall adds, "I keep hearing Brer Rabbit hollering, 'Please don't throw me in that brier patch!' " To which Fay offers no comfort. Whatever the defenders manage to concoct, says he, the regal K "will blow the socks off them." Some sailors wonder if it already has.

With reporting by John Dunn/Melbourne and James Willwerth/Los Angeles