Valencia Sailing interviewed Paul Cayard, newcomer at Desafío Español . Some excerpts.

You have been sailing with Desafío Español for three weeks now. What are your impressions of their brand new yacht, ESP 97?

I think ESP 97 is a slight improvement of ESP 88 which is exactly what they had expected. As you know, I'm here together with the team to help optimize this boat even further.

What we are trying to do is build its flexibility because what really matters after all is how it performs against the direct competitors of Desafío. Until we see the other teams we will not know really which way we are trying to optimize. For sure we have some ideas based on last year and ESP 88, the team's first new boat.

Does that mean you will race against other teams in training during the month of March?

Yes, next week Desafío Español will race against BMW Oracle, Mascalzone Latino Capitalia and probably Luna Rossa.

You just talked about Desafío's "director competitors". Who are they?

Anybody who's trying to make the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, that means Luna Rossa, Mascalzone Latino Capitalia, Victory Challenge and obviously Emirates Team NZ and BMW Oracle. Maybe the latter two are a little stronger but you really don't know. I think that on any given day any of the top teams can beat each other.

Given this tough competition are the three weeks you will spend in March enough to help the Spanish team? Will your contribution be sufficient?

I'm giving what I can and I decided a long time ago I didn't want to be fully involved in the America's Cup. Obviously, if I had come for a year I could have contributed more but it's my personal choice and I have other priorities with my family, so we agreed I would come for a month and this is what I'm doing right now.

Back in 1992, your America's Cup syndicate built 5 new boats since there was no limit on that number. Do you think the current limit to 2 new boats should be abolished?

No, I think it's a good rule. I think in general in the America's Cup a lot of money is spent to a degree that could be considered excessive. Money is the big factor in the competition.

Obviously, but this also holds true in all major pro sports.

No, that's not always the case. In American football there is a spending cap of 80 million dollars per year per team. So what ends up happening in the NFL is that talent is spread out and you have more competitive games. By contrast baseball has no spending limit and as a result the New York Yankees always have the best talent in their team because they spend 20 times the amount of money the San Francisco Giants do.

Another example is NASCAR car racing as opposed to Formula 1. NASCAR has become extremely popular in the US because basically all cars are very even and there is constant change in the lead. In Formula 1 the 4 richest teams are the ones that always win.

Does that mean you would be in favor of establishing such a spending limit in the America's Cup as well?

First of all you should always create rules that are "policeable". Creating rules that are unpoliceable, such as this one, is not a great idea. I think what the public wants to see is a competitive race and it's not exciting to know the outcome of the competition before it even starts.

We have 12 teams here in Valencia and if on any given day any of these 12 teams could beat each other that would be the most exciting competition we could have. Obviously, this is an idealistic scenario but some of the excessivenes could be saved.

Do you think the nationality rule should be restored in the America's Cup?

I think nationality is always a big selling point to the public. When the public doesn't understand a sailboat race because of its rules and complexity the one thing they can latch on to is nationality, patriotism.

In Italy sailing is very popular not because everybody understands the rules of sailing but because it's a very patriotic nation and when they see a boat racing with ITA on its sail they refer to it.

If you ask whether there should be more nationalism like there was in the past then my answer is no. I don't think everybody should be from the country of the syndicate. As it is today, the rule is pretty good, as it contains enough nationalism to attract public following and yet allows sailors to be professional.