Site Selection Tops Agenda : S.D. Yacht Club Names All-San Diego Cup Panel

The San Diego Yacht Club has named seven local residents with extensive sailing experience as the committee that will choose the site of the next America’s Cup defense.

The selection appears to bode well for San Diego, which has been considered the front-runner among several communities vying for the next regatta and the nearly $1 billion in spin-off economic benefits that go with it.

Although none of the committee members contacted Tuesday would venture an opinion about where they think the defense should be, all but one are longtime members of the yacht club, whose board of directors--which picked the committee--has come out strongly in favor of San Diego.

Notified During Weekend

Committee members were notified of their selection last weekend and met with the club’s board of directors Monday morning, according to yacht club Commodore Fred Frye. The committee, however, has yet to meet as a group, something it plans to do before it officially meets the public and the press at a news conference scheduled for next Wednesday.

The seven committee members:

- Eugene Trepte, head of Trepte Construction, a former yacht club commodore and well-known racing sailor.

- Chris Calkins, a one-time club attorney, as well as manager of a North County land company called Carltas.

- Kim Fletcher, chairman of the board of Home Federal Savings & Loan Assn. and an accomplished racing sailor.

- Fred Kirschner, 58, president of University Industries, a heating, air-conditioning and engineering firm. A past commodore of the Coronado Yacht Club, he is the only person on the committee who is not a member of the San Diego Yacht Club.

- Bruce Moore, executive partner in the insurance firm of Barney & Barney.

- Jim Haugh, a retired San Diego Transit executive.

- John Butler, an attorney and former San Diego mayor.

Trepte will serve as chairman of the committee and Calkins will be vice chairman.

“I think it’s premature to say exactly what we’ll be doing because we haven’t even met yet,” said Trepte, 61, a native San Diegan who began his affiliation with the yacht club in 1935, when he joined its junior sailing program.

Equally diplomatic was Calkins, 41, who during his stint as an attorney for the yacht club helped write the operating agreement between the yacht club and the Sail America syndicate, the fund-raising organization that sponsored Dennis Conner and his Star & Stripes boat and crew. He declined to comment specifically about the committee or its role. Calkins is a native of San Diego, a longtime member of the yacht club and an avid sailor whose father was a yacht designer.

Asked about the work facing the committee, Fletcher said, “You have to make sure that San Diego--or any other place--will have the facilities to support the race . . . that they have the ability to have a first-class regatta, including port facilities and money.”

Expansion Possible

The yacht club’s board of directors chose the committee members from a list provided by Sail America. Representatives from both groups said Tuesday that the committee may be expanded in the future but probably not until after the choice of where to hold the Cup races in 1991 is made.

Although the selection of a place to hold the regatta has priority, the committee also must make an array of decisions including, for example, when to hold the races, the location and configuration of the race course and the type of boat that will be used. Additionally, it must guide the on-land staging of the race.

Both Frye and Sail America Executive Director Sandy Purdon said the committee represents a broad range of interests and expertise.

“The thing that needs to be done now is to have the site selection . . . then get on with the other things,” said Purdon, who thinks the committee could make a decision within about 45 days, rather than the six months earlier predicted.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good balance of people. Each one has credibility and a reputation of good judgment,” Purdon said.

Frye, who has been adamant about the defense being held in San Diego, said the committee at some point could hire outside consultants with expertise in specific areas to help it in its deliberations.

“What I can say is that the club is extremely proud these gentleman have accepted the challenge . . . these are all honorable men,” Frye said.

While the yacht club and other San Diego boosters have called for the races to be held in San Diego, both Conner and Malin Burnham, president of Sail America, have emphasized that the decision shouldn’t rest simply on hometown emotions, even though both are San Diego natives.

They have stressed that the decision should be made on the basis of what’s best for the future of the America’s Cup, rather than for a particular community. And Conner has said that his competitive and technological edge in heavy-seas racing would be blunted if the next regatta were held in a comparatively light-air location such as San Diego.

Under the contract between the yacht club and Sail America, a majority of the committee had to be members of the yacht club. But Burnham also had wanted the rest of the committee composed of nationally recognized sailing experts.

Burnham was out of town and unavailable for comment Tuesday.