Davis Is Getting Back on Tack After Eagle’s Poor Cup Showing

The best thing that happened to Rod Davis at Fremantle, Australia, was the birth of his daughter, Hannah Elizabeth.

Sailing Eagle, the Newport Harbor Yacht Club entry, to 10th place (10-24) in the challenger trials of the America’s Cup was an experience he’d rather forget.

For a short time, it seemed that Davis’ career had gone down with the ship. He didn’t return to the United States right after the cup, except to sail Boomerang to second place in the Southern Ocean Racing Conference series at Florida. Otherwise, he stayed in New Zealand with his wife Liz’s family, and reports were that he would be sailing for the New Zealanders in the next cup.

At first, he wasn’t even invited to the Congressional Cup at Long Beach in March, although he had won it twice in six years.

But while hanging around Auckland, New Zealand, he collected a local crew, including his brother-in-law, to compete in the Citizens Squadron Challenge Cup, one of the eight major events in the World Cup match-racing series, and swept the fleet with a 9-0 record.

The runner-up was Wales’ Eddie Owen, who had just won the Congressional, and Davis also dispatched sailors of the two America’s Cup finalists.

“The two races we got behind we actually tacked our way around Peter Isler (Stars & Stripes) and Peter Gilmour (Kookaburra III),” Davis said.

How sweet it was. The series was sailed in New Zealand-built Stewart 34s, with the usual pains taken to equalize the boats.

“It was a good series to get off after the Fremantle disaster,” Davis said. “I’m not completely washed up yet.”

His next competition will be the Grundig World Cup at Cannes, France, starting Sunday. The field also includes America’s Cup participants Isler, New Zealand’s Chris Dickson, Australia’s Iain Murray and Colin Beashel, Ireland’s Harold Cudmore, France’s Marc Pajot and USA tactician Paul Cayard, who is the defending champion.

Davis was asked to return to the Congressional, but only after there were two late dropouts.

“Then it was too late to get my crew together, and I’d already promised to go to the SORC,” he said.

Had he felt snubbed?

“Well . . . “

Davis usually avoids controversy, but he responded after a pause: “I thought so. This takes some of the sting out of that.”

John Shadden, the young Long Beach skipper who competed in both the Congressional and Citizens events, said: “Whether it was due to the boat or the fact that he’d been sailing there for a month, it was very evident that Rod was going faster than anybody.”

Davis, 31, will be tactician on New Zealand’s KZ7--the America’s Cup boat--for the 12-meter worlds at Sardinia June 25-July 11, with David Barnes at the helm. Dickson has had a falling out with New Zealand syndicate chief Michael Fay and is planning to help the Japanese, so Davis has been discussing an arrangement with Fay for the next cup challenge.

Davis and his family are now temporarily back at his parents’ home in Coronado.

“All I’ve agreed to do is sail the world championship (with New Zealand),” Davis said. “And once that’s done, my agreement ends. There are possibilities, but nothing’s cast in concrete.”

Davis’ ambition is to be a professional sailor, not just a sailmaker on loan to steer somebody else’s boat.

This will be his first chance. The Grundig offers $150,000 in prize money, including $100,000 to the winner.

The winners probably will share their purses with their six-man crews, and those Americans who want to protect their amateur standings may deposit the money in a trust account with the United States Yacht Racing Union.

The International Olympic Committee hardly cares anymore.

Prize money for sailing, a growing practice in Europe, is virtually unknown in the United States, but that will change.

Michael Worrell, founder of the Worrell 1000 catamaran race that concluded on the East Coast last weekend, said: “I’m a believer in it, but you have to make it a substantial amount so people know you mean business, 25 or 50 thousand.”

He hopes to start next year. That will require heavy sponsorship, but that, too, is coming with the relaxation of the rule that limits advertising on boats while racing.

All of the boats in the Worrell had commercial sponsorship prominently displayed.

Roy Seaman of Malibu, with Al Etheridge as crew, won the 13-day Worrell in 92 hours 27 seconds, about 8 1/2 hours ahead of northern Californians Michael Bender and Wayne Mooneyham. Only six of the 16 starters finished. A Soviet team of Yuri Konovalov and Sergey Kuzovov was fourth.

“If there were a popularity award, they would have won it,” Worrell said by phone. “They didn’t keep to themselves, like we’d heard Russian athletes do when they travel. They went to all the parties, although they were usually the first ones to leave.”

The Soviets’ team consisted of the two sailors, an alternate and a coach.

More on Worrell: Off Cape Lookout, N.C., last week a patrol plane spotted about 150 sharks surrounding the fleet, and a dozen charged the Bender-Mooneyham boat several times.

Sailing Notes

AMERICA’S CUP--The Victorian jug, which travels in a custom-made white wooden box, touched down in Long Beach this week to coincide with a talk by Gary Jobson, who was ESPN’s expert analyst during the competition. It was accompanied, as always, by Jack Keith, a retired FBI agent from San Diego. “We never ship it,” Keith said. “It always travels in a seat next to me, either in a plane or a car. The biggest problem we have is when we have it out (on display) and everybody wants to stand right next to it and get their picture taken.” Those people are usually discouraged by a velvet rope, if not the customary two armed guards.

SPECTATOR EVENT--The third annual Sobstad Race Week for boats rating 50 to 180 by the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet is scheduled next Friday through Sunday at Long Beach. A rare feature of this event is that the leeward mark for all races will be within 100 yards of the beach just east of Belmont Pier, and there also will be some close viewing along Pier J south of the Spruce Goose dome. The boats will pass close enough not only to be seen but heard.

BIG BOATS--The Long Beach Yacht Club’s eighth Race Week is scheduled June 4-7. The early entry list of 65 boats is split into six classes, including those with International Offshore Rule ratings from 26.0 to 54.0 and an ultralight maxi class at 70.0. The latter include Pat Farrah’s Santa Cruz 70 Blondie, which also is racing in the Cal Cup out of Marina Del Rey this weekend.

CATAMARANS--In an event similar to the Worrell, brothers Jeff and Hobie Alter Jr. of Capistrano Beach are teaming with Pat Porter in the Hog’s Breath 1000 (kilometers) up the Gulf Coast of Florida from Miami to Ft. Walton Beach. Unlike the Worrell, which is open class, everybody in the Hog’s Breath sails a Hobie 16. Hobie Jr. has collected more Hobie Cat titles than anybody. . . . The Hog’s Breath will be a tuneup for the Hobie 17 nationals at Daytona Beach June 1-6.