Cayard

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - After the drag race to the finish in Leg 4, EF Language skipper Paul Cayard offered his condolences to Swedish Match, which had a seemingly comfortable 10-nautical-mile lead as the fleet approached the northern tip of New Zealand, 24 hours before the finish in Auckland."

Icebergs, tropical heat and sleeping quarters the size of coffins hardly sound like selling points for a Disney cruise. But those are some of the elements on the voyage skipper Paul Cayard and his crew will be taking during the next eight months. The Volvo Ocean Race, a 32,700-mile global circumnavigation, begins today off the coast of Vigo, Spain, with a fleet of seven boats, including the high-profile, Disney-backed entry, Pirates of the Caribbean. The nine-leg race will stop in Baltimore and Annapolis, April 17-May 7. Disney was a late comer to the race, announcing its involvement in March, hiring Cayard in August and launching the boat in September.

Before the start of the Whitbread Round the World Race last September, oddsmakers predicted EF Language and Paul Cayard, the Swedish entry's American skipper, would consistently place back in the pack.But Cayard and EF Language were the overall leaders when the fleet left Auckland, New Zealand, early this month on Leg 5's 6,670-nautical-mile journey to Sao Sebastiao, Brazil. At today's second position report, at 6 a.m. GMT, EF Language had a lead of 440 miles and was sailing fast in flat water north off the coast of Argentina.

The pirate boat of the Volvo Ocean Race now has a skipper with a swashbuckling image to match. Paul Cayard, one of America's most decorated sailors, has agreed to lead The Black Pearl, the Walt Disney Co.-backed syndicate, in the 32,700-mile race around the globe that will begin in November. The announcement is scheduled for today. With his thick mustache and deep tan, Cayard is the very model of a modern buccaneer. The 46-year-old San Francisco native has sailed in five America's Cup campaigns and is a seven-time sailing world champion.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Two years ago, Prada's America's Cup skipper Francesco de Angelis knew nothing about the art of match racing. There are some among the American contingent here who maintain that that is still the case. They are wrong. During the past four months and the past few days in particular, de Angelis has learned the hard way that match racing at the America's Cup level is very much like back-street brawling. In the past two races alone, AmericaOne skipper Paul Cayard has shown de Angelis how to win tight races while bringing his American entry back from a 3-1 deficit to knot the best-of-nine challengers series at three victories apiece.

SAN DIEGO -- The primary skippers of the defender and the challenger in the 28th America's Cup offer an interesting contrast in sailing skills and attitudes.For starters, Buddy Melges, who does most of the sailing aboard the defender, America3, is 62; Il Moro skipper and project manager Paul Cayard is 32.Melges has been from the old school, Cayard from the brave new world of sailing.But the times have been changing for Melges. The cause of the change has been syndicate head Bill Koch's approach to the America's Cup.The tenets are talent, teamwork and technology -- and Melges is getting a full dose of each.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paul Cayard, the sailor thought most likely to bring the America's Cup back to its long-standing home in the United States, has a reasoned view of his failure to do so. He was, he says, distracted from the ultimate goal of reaching the finishing line first by the more immediate challenge of making sure he had enough money even to get to the starting line. For much of the past three years he was focusing on fund-raising for AmericaOne, one of five U.S. boats defeated in the Louis Vuitton challenger series here for the right to challenge the New Zealanders for the America's Cup. For nine months he was sailing the Swedish boat EF Language to victory in the 32,000-mile Whitbread Round The World race.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- The Italian challenger Prada recorded a 37-second win over AmericaOne today to even the score in the America's Cup best-of-nine challengers finals at 4-4. The challenger to defender Team New Zealand will be decided tomorrow in the deciding ninth race. AmericaOne's skipper, Paul Cayard, was penalized on the first downwind leg for failing to respond to a luff. The penalty meant AmericaOne had to make a 270-degree turn at some point. Cayard did so just before the finish, when the outcome was decided.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paul Cayard is doing a pretty good imitation of a tightly coiled spring, a guy ready at any moment to jump out of his skin. Tomorrow, weather permitting, Cayard's $32 million AmericaOne campaign goes head-to-head against Italy's $80 million Prada Challenge in the opening match of the best-of-nine America's Cup challenger finals. At stake is the right to challenge the defender, Team New Zealand, in the America's Cup regatta in mid-February. The volcanic pressure has been building day by day here.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- American Paul Cayard sailed the St. Francis Yacht Club's challenger, AmericaOne, into top slot in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series off Auckland today, handing a lopsided, 11-minute defeat to the Spanish entry, Bravo Espana.The building breeze that started as a 3-knot zephyr and finished as a 26-knot blow nearly turned the rankings upside down. AmericaOne earned nine points for its win and now leads the 11-boat Challenger fleet with 81 points.AmericaOne's nearest rival is Japanese challenger Nippon with 74.5 points.

When Disney's your name and a sailboat race around the world is your game, hiring a skipper might seem as simple as dialing up the biggest star you can find. This voyage has big bucks and glamour written all over it. The media giant is expected to shovel as much as $16 million into its Volvo Ocean Race entry, a floating billboard for the Johnny Depp sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. But lots of the world's best big-water sailors are already tied up in other projects, making for slim pickings.

ATHENS - Luckily for Paul Cayard, sailing can be an old man's game. At 45, the America's Cup veteran is one of the graybeards at the Olympic regatta, competing in the 17-boat Star fleet, which is scheduled to begin six days of sailing today. Only double-handed dinghy sailor Kevin Burnham, 47, is older on the U.S. team. Of the 34 Star sailors, Germany's Alexander Hagen is older by four years. Cayard's crew is Phil Trinter, a mere child at 35. Stepping from a big America's Cup yacht with lots of muscle power in the 16-member crew into a do-it-yourself 23-footer meant Cayard had to spend a lot of time in the gym in the past 18 months.

WASHINGTON - The clinic for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center on Wednesday night had nothing to do with doctors. Members of past and present U.S. Paralympic squads and other wheelchair athletes buzzed up and down the hardwood at Wagner Sports Center to make a point: Sports can be part of your life no matter what your disability. "This is life beginning again," said John Register, who won the silver medal in the long jump at the 2000 Paralympics after an injury forced the amputation of his left leg. "That's what we want to show these soldiers.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paul Cayard, the sailor thought most likely to bring the America's Cup back to its long-standing home in the United States, has a reasoned view of his failure to do so. He was, he says, distracted from the ultimate goal of reaching the finishing line first by the more immediate challenge of making sure he had enough money even to get to the starting line. For much of the past three years he was focusing on fund-raising for AmericaOne, one of five U.S. boats defeated in the Louis Vuitton challenger series here for the right to challenge the New Zealanders for the America's Cup. For nine months he was sailing the Swedish boat EF Language to victory in the 32,000-mile Whitbread Round The World race.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Italy's silver bullet, the Luna Rossa of Prada Challenge, is to be the 30th America's Cup challenger. The Italians earned that honor in convincing style today with a decisive 49-second win over skipper Paul Cayard's AmericaOne in the do-or-die ninth race of the best-of-nine challenger finals. Though Cayard and his AmericaOne crew sailed well today, they were outclassed by better Italian boat speed upwind and down. The Italians now have an excellent shot at winning the America's Cup regatta, which is to be defended by New Zealand in a best-of-nine race series beginning here Feb. 19. This will be the first time in the America's Cup 151-year history that an American yacht has not competed in the Cup's finals.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- The Italian challenger Prada recorded a 37-second win over AmericaOne today to even the score in the America's Cup best-of-nine challengers finals at 4-4. The challenger to defender Team New Zealand will be decided tomorrow in the deciding ninth race. AmericaOne's skipper, Paul Cayard, was penalized on the first downwind leg for failing to respond to a luff. The penalty meant AmericaOne had to make a 270-degree turn at some point. Cayard did so just before the finish, when the outcome was decided.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- San Francisco-based AmericaOne, led by skipper Paul Cayard, clinched one of two challenger finalist berths in America's Cup competition today when it turned back a strong challenge from Japan entry Nippon on the ninth day of semifinal racing. The victory gave the St. Francis Yacht Club's AmericaOne its eighth win in nine races, good for eight points and an insurmountable lead in the semifinal standings. At the same time, its 17-second victory over Nippon eliminated the Japanese from advancing to the finals.

The pirate boat of the Volvo Ocean Race now has a skipper with a swashbuckling image to match. Paul Cayard, one of America's most decorated sailors, has agreed to lead The Black Pearl, the Walt Disney Co.-backed syndicate, in the 32,700-mile race around the globe that will begin in November. The announcement is scheduled for today. With his thick mustache and deep tan, Cayard is the very model of a modern buccaneer. The 46-year-old San Francisco native has sailed in five America's Cup campaigns and is a seven-time sailing world champion.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paul Cayard's AmericaOne scored a humiliating, 1-minute, 6-second victory over Italy's Prada Challenge today to take a 4-3 lead in the best-of-nine America's Cup challenger finals. The Italians threw the race away at the start when they split tacks and went to the left side of the course, enabling the Americans to go right. Cayard's crew, once down 3-1, has won three straight races and can become the 30th America's Cup challenger with a victory tomorrow or, if needed, Sunday.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Patrizio Bertelli has carefully positioned a New Zealand $5 note in the center of the notice board in his stark white office. The buff-colored note bears the shy, almost bashful image of a lanky young mountaineer Bertelli admires: Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer the planet's highest peak, Mount Everest. The note is there to remind Bertelli of an important principle: the power of one, the notion that an individual with vision, courage and determination can reach apparently impossible goals.