Davis May Head New Zealand’s Next Cup Bid

Some of Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes people thought Eagle skipper Rod Davis was a traitor for helping New Zealand tune up for the America’s Cup challenge finals.

What will they think if Davis is the skipper of the New Zealand challenger in 1990-91?

“Right now we’re talking about it,” Davis said by phone from Auckland, New Zealand, this week. “Nothing’s been signed and sealed.”

KZ7 skipper Chris Dickson confirmed when he was in Long Beach for the Congressional Cup last month that he and Michael Fay, chief of the syndicate that backed New Zealand’s challenge, had parted and he was looking for other opportunities. Dickson is believed to be negotiating with the Japanese syndicate that bought Alan Bond’s Australia III and IV without the knowledge to sail them.

Fay wants Davis as his project manager and possible skipper, similar to the role Iain Murray had with Kookaburra III.

Despite passionate appeals to patriotism when the American syndicates were trying to raise money for their campaigns, the America’s Cup technically is a contest among yacht clubs, not countries.

To steer an America’s Cup entry, Davis said, “The only restriction is that you have to be a resident of that country for two years prior to the Cup.”

Davis is a resident of New Zealand. His wife, Liz, who is a native, and their 3-month-old daughter have been staying in Auckland, and Davis commuted to the Southern Ocean Racing Conference series in Florida.

In June, Davis will be tactician on New Zealand’s KZ7 in the world 12-meter championships at Sardinia, with David Barnes at the helm.

There are precedents for sailing under foreign flags in the America’s Cup, and several syndicates had foreigners in key positions at Fremantle. The Kookaburras’ rules expert, Brian Willis, was English, and New Zealand’s operations director, Laurent Esquier, was French. Davis’ brother-in-law, New Zealander Tom Schnackenburg, was Australia II’s sailmaker in ’83.

Schnackenburg also will be Davis’ tactician in the Citizens International Match Racing Championships at Auckland later this month, and nobody is calling him a turncoat.

However, if sailing is to remain a media event, as it was at Fremantle, rooting interests could be muddled by sailors jumping from boat to boat, regardless of nationality. Can you fathom Rod Davis of New Zealand on the starting line against Chris Dickson of Japan?

For Davis, a sailmaker by trade, there may be no other choice if he pursues his ambition to be a professional 12-meter sailor, which stands to be considerably more rewarding than before. It’s unlikely there will be five American syndicates vying against Conner to defend the Cup for the San Diego Yacht Club in 1990-91. Maybe not even one.

Davis’ deal with Fay, he said, “would be a long-term commitment involving the testing and developing of the boats.”

He would want more authority than he had as the skipper of Eagle, the Newport Harbor Yacht Club effort that flopped.

Fay also may be moved to resolve his differences with Dickson, who is now a national hero in New Zealand.

But if Dickson is allowed to defect, Davis said, “I’ll give him Eagle any time he wants it.”

If you were on the San Diego Freeway between Gardena and Long Beach after 2 a.m. this morning, you may have encountered an odd convoy bearing a long, thin object.

It was the 82-foot mast for Aikane X-5, the seagoing catamaran that Huntington Beach’s Randy Smyth and six friends will sail to Hawaii in the biennial Transpac race from Pt. Fermin starting July 2.

Well, not exactly in the Transpac. More like with the Transpac. Officially, the Transpac recognizes only monohull entries, although a few rogue multihulls have joined unofficially over the years to demonstrate their superior speed.

The mast was being transported from Cal Custom Yachts in Gardena to the Marina Shipyard in Long Beach for stepping into the boat. Smyth also plans to compete in the Speedsailing Grand Prix at Long Beach June 13-14, with other giant multihulls and some ultralight maxi boats.

Smyth, with crew Jay Glaser, won an Olympic silver medal in the Tornado class in ‘84, and their ’88 campaign moved ahead when they won the North Americans at St. Petersburg, Fla., last weekend.

“We had all kinds of weird weather,” Smyth said, citing winds of more than 35 knots that canceled one race, then a “drifter” when the fleet barely finished before the time limit.

Their series was 1-1-1-2-7--the last being the light-air race--but the surprise was the fifth-place finish of England’s Rob White, who has won the last two world championships. Runners-up were Gary Knapp and Chris Steinfeld, currently Smyth-Glaser’s strongest competition for the ’88 Olympic berth.

Susan Dierdorff-Taylor and Cory Fischer of Annapolis, Md., are sailors to be taken seriously.

Dierdorff-Taylor, the skipper, and Fischer not only won the women’s 470 class in the Olympic Classes Regatta out of Alamitos Bay YC last weekend but finished third overall among men and women. They won the final race outright. The 470 men and women sailed together but were officially scored separately.

In unofficial Olympic scoring, Taylor and Fischer (39.0) finished behind top Olympic contenders Morgan Reeser-Jay Renehan of Miami (21.4) and John Shadden-Charlie Moore of Long Beach (34.7) but ahead of Brady Sih-Bryant Sih of Richmond (42.7) and Dave Ullman-Ken Watts of Newport Beach (43.4), the ’84 U.S. Olympic Trials runners-up.

Another impressive performance among the 193 boats in 11 classes was the six straight wins by Chuck Queen, 25, of Long Beach in Laser, one of the four Pan-Am Games classes competing.

Sailing Notes The Citizens International Match Racing Championships at Auckland starting April 23 are the second of eight events on the new World Match Racing Conference circuit. The first was the Congressional Cup at Long Beach last month, won by Eddie Owen of Wales. The field includes Eagle skipper Rod Davis, Long Beach’s John Shadden, San Diego’s Peter Isler, New Zealand’s Chris Dickson and Australia’s Peter Gilmour. Davis, who has won the Congressional twice and the Citizens once, did not compete at Long Beach, where Shadden, Isler and Dickson tied for second. Isler, the navigator on Stars & Stripes, is the defending champion in the Citizens. . . . Davis, steering Boomerang, was a close second behind Kialoa in the maxi class of the SORC. Dennis Conner was sixth. . . . Eagle’s trial boat, Magic, is gone from the Marina Shipyard in Long Beach, having been sold to a Danish syndicate for $125,000. That was $25,000 below the asking price. There also have been some foreign offers for Eagle, which is on a freighter home from Fremantle, still carrying its surfboard-shaped keel. “I think if they put a new, efficient keel on it, it might be competitive,” Davis said. . . . ESPN has tentatively scheduled a one-hour highlight show of its America’s Cup coverage for July 4. . . . Where will the next America’s Cup be sailed? They’re still forming the committee that will decide that. A list of 20 names has been submitted to the board of directors of the San Diego YC. Don’t expect a decision before August.