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life Riley found empowerment she sought at sea
By Stuart Streuli, Special for USA TODAY
VALENCIA, Spain Long before Dawn Riley was general manager of an international team with a multimilliondollar budget, she was simply a sailor from Detroit. She knew how to spit, curse and settle differences in timehonored tradition of the sea.
Soon after the 1992 America's Cup she saw an opportunity to let one of her teammates on Bill Koch's America3 all of whom were male know what she thought about his underhanded tactics to keep her out of the starting lineup. She punched him.
"Not ideal, not totally mature, but a sign of being completely empowered and knowing that I was strong enough and fit enough and just as powerful as the guys," she says. "Or in that situation, slightly more powerful."
After more than two decades of racing, Riley, 42, will be a sailor for life. The closest thing she has to a permanent home is a 40foot sailboat in San Francisco.
Her days of racing sailboats for a living may be numbered. Areva Challenge, for which Riley serves as general manager, has been mathematically eliminated from advancing to the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup. The competition will decide the challenger to face Alinghi in the America's Cup, starting June 23.
Areva's campaign for this Cup will end this week. The challenge may move forward, and Riley could go with it. She also has a backup plan.
"If there's a shakeup at Areva, I have my contacts with Hillary (Clinton's 2008) campaign to volunteer," she says. "See how I like it."
At a young age, Riley set her sights on the top level of the sport, the Whitbread Race, now known as the Volvo Ocean Race, and the America's Cup, both historically off limits to women.
After achieving both Riley sailed around the world in the 1989'90 Whitbread she had something of an epiphany. In 1994 she faced a choice between the PACT 95 campaign, laden with allstar American talent, or Koch's second campaign, the first allfemale effort in Cup history. She went with her conscience.
"She brought a lot of that toughness; let's get down to the nitty gritty and get on with this," says Mighty Mary teammate Katie Pettibone,[url=http://www.sport.fr/sponsoring/uggpascher.html]ugg pas cher[/url], one of three women on the sailing rosters of the 12 syndicates in Valencia.
The team was defeated in its quest to defend the America's Cup by Dennis Conner, but it proved that women could competitively sail the 75foot America's Cup Class boats.
When the French fatherandson duo of Ortwin and Stephane Kandler decided to challenge for the 32nd America's Cup, they tabbed Riley to run the program. "In France we didn't have this experience for sure," says Stephane Kandler, "people who had won the Cup and knew about it."
But her Cup experience didn't fully prepare her for what this team has encountered. Before Areva stepped in last year, the program was in danger of folding. Running a multicultural program, largely French with some Brits and Americans, has taxed Riley's management skills. She pulled herself off the race boat.
"It's a challenge, but she does it well," says midbowman Matt Cornwell. "She's a very strong character. One thing she always does, she sticks with her beliefs, and that's not always the easiest thing to do."
Last week Areva showed its potential with wins over +39 Challenge and Mascalzone LatinoCapitalia, both on the same day.
"That's probably the biggest day we've had at Areva Challenge," says Cornwell. "It's certainly a day that, however this thing finishes, we'll look back on with a lot of pride."