New Zealand Wasn’t Unfair One in Cup Race

I have to comment on R.C. McDougall’s letter (Jan. 20) regarding the America’s Cup.

Mr. McDougall has, in my opinion, a strange (though not uncommon) sense of what is “fair” and “unfair.”

Dennis Conner chose to race a catamaran rather than one of hundreds of monohulled yachts available in San Diego Harbor because, great sportsman that he is, he knew he would have an insurmountable edge over New Zealand’s monohull. This is typical Conner maneuvering. Conner raised all kinds of protests over New Zealand’s fiberglass hull during the last Cup competition until he found out he could beat the boat, and then all was forgiven.

As for “all those men so anxious to help New Zealand,” among those men are names such as Bus Mosbacher, Ted Turner and other world class helmsmen who look upon the America’s Cup as a fair sailing contest between similar yachts, a viewpoint that Dennis Conner obviously doesn’t share.

PAUL WILLIAMS

San Diego