Sail America, Yacht Club Fail to Reach Compromise

Dennis Conner’s Sail America Foundation plans to take to arbitration its dispute with the San Diego Yacht Club over the makeup of the committee that will choose the site of the next America’s Cup defense.

Sail America trustee John Marshall contended Saturday night that the club pulled a “cheap power play” in stacking the committee with San Diego people who would consider no other site for the next defense.

A contract between Sail America and the club struck before the recent competition at Fremantle, Australia, stipulated that Sail America would submit a list of names from which the club would choose the committee, a simple majority of whom were to be members of the club.

However, from that list the club picked a seven-man committee that includes six members of the San Diego Yacht Club and one from the nearby Coronado Yacht Club, virtually assuring the selection of San Diego.

In an all-day meeting Saturday, the club’s board agreed to drop one committee member and add five new ones, including Sail America President Malin Burnham and four non-San Diego residents--”each a person of some expertise and reputation,” Marshall said.

However, the compromise was unacceptable to Sail America.

The offer was spearheaded by club commodore Fred Frye, whom a spokesman described as deeply disappointed over the breakdown. A day earlier Frye had indicated that the two sides were close to agreement.

He said in an interview Friday that it was a certainty that the committee would be expanded, possibly within a week’s time.

He requested that The Times withhold reporting his comments because the negotiations were at a delicate stage.

Frye said the two sides had been acting like “high school kids” as they jostled for influence on the committee. He said many of the club’s board of directors were angered by comments that skipper Dennis Conner made during a San Diego Press Club speech, in which he steadfastly refused to come out in favor of San Diego as the next defense site.

It was within days of Conner’s speech, Frye noted, that the board responded by issuing a strong statement saying there was little question the races should be held in San Diego. Frye said, however, that the two sides had begun to reconcile their differences, and as evidence of that Burnham and Marshall had talked with officials of the San Diego Unified Port District last week. Frye could not be reached for comment Saturday night.

Marshall, who headed the Stars & Stripes design team, said the club’s action was “an effort to manipulate and control this thing at the expense of all the other values. We’re being told there are no other values other than satisfying the selfish needs of the San Diego community. Not one committee member has America’s Cup expertise or experience.”

Marshall denied that Conner and other Sail America leaders would prefer to defend the cup in Hawaii or elsewhere.

“What Sail America is asking is a committee that can make a rational decision,” Marshall said.

The contract allows for arbitration to settle disputes. The procedure calls for the two sides to agree on the selection of an arbiter, whose decision would be binding.

Sail America spokesman Robert Hopkins disputed that the club has the right to seize total control of the defense because “they didn’t pay for the America’s Cup or take all the risks.”

Times staff writer Armando Acuna contributed to this story.