Race Under Way for Selection as the Next America’s Cup Host
While Dennis Conner sailed Stars & Stripes through the roller-coaster waves of the Indian Ocean this week in pursuit of sailing’s grand prize, another competition was gradually unfolding back home.
The race to hold the next series of America’s Cup races already involves several cities and states. If Conner can defeat the Australian Cup defenders, the decision on the next series will be up to Conner’s Sail America syndicate and the San Diego Yacht Club, where Conner is based. But the races won’t necessarily be held in waters off San Diego, even though Conner and his boat are from San Diego, as are top officials of Sail America.
An Australian boat defeated Conner off Newport, R.I., in 1983, taking the Cup away from the United States for the first time in the series’ 132 years. Eliminating a crowded field of U.S. and international challengers, Conner last month won the right to take on another Australian boat in the series that was under way this week. The fourth and possibly final race was scheduled for today in Australia (Tuesday night Pacific time).
Billion Tourist Dollars
The next series of Cup races is expected to be held in 1990 or 1991. If held in San Diego, the races could bring an additional $1 billion in tourist spending to Southern California, with “a considerable portion” going to Orange County, said James Doti, dean of the business school at Orange County’s Chapman College, who co-authored a report on the economic benefits of the Cup.
Contacted Tuesday, Orange County sailing enthusiasts said they will be lobbying hard for San Diego to host the Cup defense. Some of them backed the Eagle, the Newport Beach boat that was among the yachts eliminated in last year’s challenge trials.
Holding the races in San Diego has become a matter of pride for all Southern California sailors, noted Newport Beach architect William Ficker, a key adviser to the Eagle syndicate and a veteran of earlier America’s Cup campaigns.
“Southern California sailors have been at the forefront of sailing competition internationally, and this is proper recognition to have it in Southern California--an appropriate anointment,” Ficker said Tuesday.
Despite such views, there is no guarantee that the America’s Cup competition and the millions of dollars in local revenues that are expected to go with it--plus the international exposure a tourist city like San Diego covets--will take place there.
Already, in Rhode Island, where the Cup races were held from 1930 until this year, there are moves to get the races back to Newport and Narragansett Bay. It is territory familiar to Conner, who has raced there many times in previous America’s Cup contests.
Advertising Campaign
After Conner defeated New Zealand last month to reach the final, Rhode Island Gov. Edward DiPrete sent a telegram telling Conner he was welcome back in Newport and inviting him to meet with Rhode Island representatives, two of whom are now in Fremantle, the Western Australia city that is the site of that country’s Cup defense. To make its presence known, Rhode Island bought advertisements in Australian newspapers with the logo, “Rhode Island--where America’s Cup belongs.”
In addition, the governor has created a committee headed by former America’s Cup sailor Halsey Hereshoff to plot strategy in pursuing a Cup defense.
“My feeling is that the Cup is not committed to any community,” said Louis Fazzano, director of the Rhode Island office of economic development. “The state’s position at this time is that it will do whatever it can do to bring the race here . . . we’ll do whatever has to be done.”
Other places, such as Hawaii, where Conner practiced for this year’s America’s Cup, San Francisco, Long Beach and New Orleans have expressed an interest in the races to Sail America officials, although no one has yet made a serious proposal.
In Orange County, sailing enthusiasts say they have no plans to “buy the Cup” away from San Diego, as Ficker put it.
“There may be some cities like San Francisco that really see this as an opportunity and may say, ‘Look, let’s offer them (San Diego) $30 million or whatever the number is, and then San Diego can make a nice profit,’ ” Ficker said. “But Newport Beach is too small a city to go out and buy the America’s Cup. And we’re not strictly like Baltimore or Newport, R.I.--an adjunct to New York for vacationing yachtsmen, a hub for yachtsmen.”
He added, however, that he expected local sailors to put together an Orange County-based challenge for the next round of Cup races.
“I think there will be people in this area who will probably form a group and challenge for the right to be the defender because there are people bitten pretty hard by the bug,” Ficker said. He said he did not plan to be among them.
Support for San Diego
Richard Luehres, president of the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that in the event of a Conner victory he will convene a meeting of the chamber’s executive committee early next week to support San Diego as the site and start planning “a regional approach” to the next America’s Cup.
San Diego officials are pursuing the Cup defense site for more than just the prestige, though there would be plenty of that. They are doing it for the money, and they base their case on the study done by Doti’s Center for Economic Research at Chapman’s School of Business and Management.
Prepared in the summer of 1985 for the Eagle syndicate, the study projected a total economic impact of $1 billion on the Southern California economy, principally in Orange County, if the Cup races were held in Newport Beach.
Should San Diego end up as host to the races, Doti said, there would still be significant benefits for Orange County. “The America’s Cup is kind of a magnet” for visitors, he said.
“They might attend one event of a race and take part in some other tourist-related activity. Tijuana will benefit and Orange County would be a super attraction with the theme parks, Knott’s Berry Farm and the activities of Newport Beach. Visitors would tend to stop for a few days in Orange County” either after the races or driving there from Los Angeles, Doti said.
Spending Starts Early
The money would roll in over 2 1/2 years, the study said, because racing syndicates traditionally arrive at the Cup defense site several years in advance to test their boats, then hold preliminary trials, elimination matches and finally the duel for the Cup.
The Chapman College report was based on the likelihood of 24 racing syndicates descending on Newport Beach. San Diego officials say that with the increased popularity of the sport caused by television coverage of the Australian races, as many as 30 syndicates may enter the next competition.
Each syndicate, according to the report, is like a small factory with 50 to 100 workers and a multimillion-dollar budget, the funds for which are derived from private, corporate and individual contributions.
In addition, the America’s Cup could be expected to draw 1.6 million hard-core sailing zealots, as well as another 4 million tourists who would attend the races and related activities, the report concluded.
Sail America officials, although preoccupied with a last-minute fund-raising campaign to help make up the last $2.7 million of Conner’s $15-million Stars & Stripes budget, say they want the America’s Cup defense in San Diego.
Port District a Factor
“Chances are 80% it will be in San Diego,” said Sandy Purdon, executive director of Sail America.
The city’s chances rest primarily on the San Diego Unified Port District, which controls most of the tidelands rimming San Diego Bay. It would be up to the district to provide the necessary boat docks, cranes, sail lofts, media center and the like that are considered essential to hosting the Cup races.
Officials in San Diego are taking an inventory of several possible bayside locations that could be used by Cup competitors.
“We’re trying to show early in the game that we want this thing, and to do that we’re trying to find out exactly what is needed,” said San Diego Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer. “I don’t think it would cost us that kind of money ($25 million) . . . but I don’t expect anyone from the port district to say, ‘Here’s the money, take what you want.’ ”
Don Nay, the port district’s executive director, says no one should minimize potential environmental obstacles that could be prevalent if, for example, extensive dredging or pile driving is necessary, or if clam beds or eel grass habitat is threatened.
Although the port district would be expected to provide racing facilities, permit approvals from a welter of government agencies--ranging from the Army Corps of Engineers to the California Department of Fish and Game--may also be necessary, a process that could be very time-consuming.
The Navy says that it is willing to help but that it is still too early to begin to plan the Navy’s role in providing bayfront facilities, according to Cmdr. Mark Baker, spokesman for Rear Adm. Bruce Boland.
No San Diego Money
San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor has said that she supports having the Cup competition in San Diego but that it will have to be done without city money.
“Basically, she feels it’s the port district’s responsibility. She doesn’t want to spend San Diego taxpayers’ dollars to bring it here,” said mayoral spokesman Paul Downey.
The logistics of selecting a host site are governed by a “deed of gift,” according to Sail America officials. If Conner is victorious, a San Diego America’s Cup Defense Committee, composed of seven to 11 people, would be formed within 30 days. Nominated by Sail America, this site selection committee would then be approved by the San Diego Yacht Club.
The committee would then have about 90 days to pick the site.