Yes, Cayard made several bonehead moves in this series. It's impressive that even with those moves and the slower boat he was able to push it to nine races. He was only really competitive in wind and chop, where he made a few correct guesses on wind shifts. Close in, his tactics were fair to awful. He let Prada get separation when he should have stayed close and cover, and when he tried to get close he fouled.
The worst for me was in the fourth race, where he had it won with 50 yards to go and he failed to cover. Then Prada got a puff and an overlap, and Cayard tried belatedly to cover, but he was windward boat and he fouled. That was the end of the series as far as I was concerned, he got down 1-3 at that point and it was uphill all the way.
Then there were the equipment problems. I mean, blowing one or two chutes is one thing, but how many did he blow? Six or more? And there were lots of rips that somehow held together, or he might have blown more. And the sheets letting go, the over-rides, that looked like a beer can series. Sure, he didn't have as much money as Prada, but hey, $25M ought to get you chutes that don't blow in 20 knots!
He admits he had too much on his plate with fund-raising, team management, etc, and his head wasn't completely on the racing. That's the problem when we send five under-financed teams to compete, instead of one or two fully funded sharp ones, like Prada. We have too many prima donnas that refuse to work together to challenge for the cup. I gotta agree with you, though, if I had to choose a single skipper to fund and go defend, it would be Dennis. That SOB just needs to be close, and he will find a way to win. Too bad he had such a slow boat again. |
