I'm probably going to be starting a bit of a [censored] fight with this, but I feel I must come to the defense of the NYYC and their "gutless" response to Sir Fey. Not to take anything away from Fey, he was quite smart in making the challenge with the superboat. The part you are leaving out is that he had the boat in hand, ready to race. When Conner won the cup back in '87, they failed to follow the provisions in the deed of gift for setting up the next cup (responding to the challenger of record). This allowed Sir Fey to set the conditions for the challenge naming their 90' boat as the challenger. They were also able to set the date of the challenge to be in 1 year. Without enough time to build a comparable boat (which Fey knew) the NYYC responded with the catamaran. pretty interesting debacle, but I think both parties share some culpability for setting the stage of the '88 race.
The upside is that it changed the boats that were used for the cup, the downside is that they are still pigs. why draw a rule where the boats drag around 45K lbs. of lead???
