Yachting: Dalton not playing Fossett's game

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

They are calling it "The Cat Fight" - the showdown between the two fastest catamarans on water.

But it is rapidly turning into a game of cat-and-mouse, with Grant Dalton the unwilling rodent.

A week ago, Dalton turned down a challenge from billionaire Steve Fossett to race their monster catamarans, Club Med and PlayStation, across the Atlantic.

The New Zealand round-the-world veteran felt his new boat and crew were not ready to pit their speed against PlayStation, which has been in the water for 18 months to Club Med's two.

Quite simply, he admitted, he would lose - and that would be bad psychology for the crew five months out from their real goal: to win the non-stop global circumnavigation called The Race.

Yet on the eve of the boats' planned departure from New York, Fossett is calling it quite differently. He is going to race.

Fossett, a man driven by records on water and in the air, is telling the world he has accepted an invitation from Dalton for a head-to-head challenge back to England.

"This is very exciting - and we relish the chance to race Club Med. Of course, there is always a risk of losing - and we don't like losing! But we have to race to find out," he said.

Dalton is not a man to be pressured into anything. He will not play Fossett's game unless he knows he has a good chance of winning.

"He wants to go for the kill when he knows we're a bit weak. He's cunning, all right," Dalton said. "We'd love to do it ... But it's not right to play yet."

Yet if the two boats are in the same body of water at the same time, there is little Dalton can do about it.

Both Club Med and PlayStation are looking at leaving New York today or tomorrow, when weather patterns look best for a shot at the transatlantic record.

But in mid-Atlantic the weather is looking patchy, so a record is probably unlikely. If the breeze goes soft, Dalton definitely will not want a race - he does not have a single light-airs sail in his wardrobe yet.

But he understands his rival's frustration. Since Fossett's boat was launched in Auckland in December 1998, he has had no one to play with.

Other than setting a world 24-hour speed record (which Club Med broke last month), PlayStation has yet to establish just how fast it is.

"Everyone assumes we are quicker," Dalton said. "But they know their boat so much better than we know ours. They have to be the favourites at the moment because of the time they've had on the water.

"I think we'll be ready to play in August. We'll both be in England and we will go off the coast somewhere for a blast."

Dalton and Fossett do not know each other. But for the purpose of this round-the-world campaign, they are intense enemies.

"You have to have someone you can hate - it's part of racing," said Dalton. "So we can hate him."

Dalton came home to Auckland last week to be there when his 5-year-old son, Mack, starts school.

It has been a crazy five weeks getting the 33.5m super-cat finished, in the water, flying a hull, breaking the world speed record and shaving two days off the east-west transatlantic crossing..

Dalton was almost knocked flat at the first hurdle. He found it difficult to deal with the relaxed French attitude at the boatyard in Vannes.

"There was friction with the builders. Under the French labour laws, they only had to work 35 1/2 hours a week, and we were driving these guys into the twilight zone.

"We wanted to get the boat in the water, but they were just used to being late. I know they don't like me in Brittany any more."

Dalton sees his main job now as protecting the boat from spying eyes. With two new rival boats still to come out of the same French yard, Dalton does not want to accidentally share any of his secrets.

He is so suspicious that he kicked the designers off the boat as soon as it was out on the water.

"I'm going out of the way to protect this boat. It dominates my life," he said. "I don't want to teach any of the boats what we have learned, or what we're doing, so we'll do all our work in England now."

Before The Race starts on December 31 from Barcelona - when seven boats are likely to be on the start-line - Dalton wants Club Med to have another crack at the west-east transatlantic record.

It has stood at six days, 13 hours for the past decade and is the toughest sailing record in the world to beat.