America’s Cup Prospects to Get Weekend Tests Off Long Beach

American and Italian crews that hope to challenge Australia for the America’s Cup at Perth in early 1987 will test their prospects off Long Beach this weekend.

Rod Davis of the Eagle syndicate, from the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, will sail the test boat Magic against Yacht Club Italiano’s Victory ‘83, winner of the 12-meter world championships in Sardinia last year.

There will be one match race Saturday and another Sunday over the new America’s Cup course designated by the Australians: twice around a triangular course of eight legs measuring a total of 24.1 miles.

The Italian boat, bought from the British as a test boat after the 1983 campaign, is skippered by Lorenzo Bortolotti, with Flavio Scala at the helm.

In a cooperative effort, the Italian and U.S. crews have been training against each other for the past month, and Davis was tactician on Victory when it won at Sardinia.

Davis is on a roll. He crewed on Robbie Haines’ Soling in their gold-medal effort at last summer’s Olympics, helped the Italians win the 12-meter world title in October, steered Boomerang to first place in Class 1 of the Southern Ocean Racing Conference series in February and won his second Congressional Cup match-racing title in March.

Both groups expect to have new boats later this year after sorting out sail and hull design on the test boats.

Magic, discarded by Dennis Conner before the 1983 America’s Cup, has been given a winged keel similar to that of Australia II. Victory ’83 has a standard fin keel.