Defending the Cup Is a Catch That’s Too Big to Let Get Away

For years and years a hotbed of deep sea fishing, San Diego has the biggest catch in its history on the hook.

And it’s being brought in by a racing yacht, of all things.

Dennis Conner, a sailor with an obsession, is reeling in this trophy. He once had it and let it get away, so he went after it relentlessly . . . like a security guard who had the Mona Lisa stolen on his shift.

Conner, of course, will be on his way back shortly from Australia with America’s Cup. The name itself should be sufficient indication that the ancient silver relic was a bit out of place out beyond the Outback.

Thus, it will be headed home to a home it has never known. Previously enshrined at the New York Yacht Club for the first 132 years of its life, it will be headed back to the U.S. after three years and four months in Perth. Because Conner sails under the flag of the San Diego Yacht Club, the cup will reside in a city six years younger than the stodgy NYYC.

This is not the prettiest of cups. In fact, there probably isn’t a trophy shop in the world that would put it on the shelf. It looks like something that would gather dust in grandma’s closet.

However, it isn’t what it is, but what it means.

To Conner, Stars & Stripes and the Sail America syndicate, it represents supremacy in the world of international yachting.

What has changed in all these years is that winning the America’s Cup means something to more than just the guys on the winning yacht. The competition has captured the fancy of the world. Folks who used to think “boom” was one of John Madden’s favorite words, and nothing else, can now explain the advantage of sailing on a starboard tack.

The America’s Cup may well be the biggest sporting event in the world in terms of interest extending over weeks and months. The only comparable event would be soccer’s World Cup, and that one plays to little fanfare--or interest--here in the U.S.

There is now the potential to have the 1990-91 America’s Cup defense off the San Diego coast.

That is what the community has on its hook.

The Event.

Conner will be bringing the cup to San Diego, but only San Diego can keep The Event itself from getting away.

Incredibly, it is not exactly a slam dunk--sorry, Kareem, but this too is a yachting expression--that the competition will be brought to San Diego. The community has to want it. The community’s political leaders have to want it. The community’s civic leaders have to want it. All of this will cost money, probably about $25 million, and that’s how badly they would have to want it. Like anything good, it has to be earned.

Sail America President Malin Burnham has assured me that San Diego is No. 1 on the list of candidates. He is a San Diego guy, and so is Conner. They are not going to look down the street if they can find what they need in their backyard.

However, commitment is the key. If San Diego does not come swiftly to the front with a commitment to support this effort, it will end up in some place like Rhode Island or Hawaii or New Orleans or Key West, for that matter.

Can you imagine San Diego losing an event of this magnitude to Rhode Island? Or Hawaii?

Will America’s Finest City blow the most lucrative sporting extravaganza in the world to one of the country’s two smallest states? It would be like Mickey Rooney, and not Clint Eastwood, getting the girl.

San Diego is taking great pride in being the host to Super Bowl XXII, and rightly so, but a Super Bowl is petty cash compared with what hosting America’s Cup would do for a city. It has been estimated that the lengthy cup buildup and competition would bring in $1 billion in revenue. That’s billion, The Big B, the number with three commas and nine zeroes.

Is San Diego going to say to the world that it cannot handle such an extravaganza? And a backwater fishing village such as Fremantle could? And did.

I hope not.

But it could happen. This biggest of big ones could get off the hook.

How?

Political and/or bureaucratic red tape could do to a San Diego defense what kelp on the rudder does to a 12-meter. It could slow it until it is too late to be successful . . . or stop it altogether.

It is much too important in both tangible and intangible ways to let this catch off the hook. The economic impact, which translates to both jobs and money, is enormous. The exposure is almost beyond comprehension. This is a sporting event that transcends the world of fun and games and takes on economical and cultural overtones.

Obviously, it is much more than a regatta. Just ask the folks in Fremantle, who will be left to contemplate what life is going to be like without it. Losing The Event will be a much bigger hurt than losing the cup, no matter what they may say in the immediate aftermath.

A few weeks ago, it appeared very uncertain whether San Diego would be the site of the next defense. Officials from both Sail America and the San Diego Yacht Club were concerned about lack of response from the community, and seriously contemplating a growing list of aspiring hosts.

Indeed, to put this in yachting terms, it appeared that San Diego was sailing directly into the wind. We all know now that sailing directly into the wind is a good way to go nowhere.

However, I suspect that San Diego is about to turn the mark, ready to set the spinnaker and race away from Hawaii and Rhode Island just as Stars & Stripes has raced away from the Kiwis and Aussies.

Dennis Conner and his crew cannot set this spinnaker. This is San Diego’s spinnaker to hoist.

Or big one to land.