Sail America’s Motives Are Questioned : Challengers Charge Syndicate Is Out for ‘Financial Gain’

Six America’s Cup challengers met Thursday to affirm their support of multiple challengers in the 1988 America’s Cup regatta and to question the relationship of Sail America Foundation with the San Diego Yacht Club, the current defender of the America’s Cup.

“We do not recognize Sail America as having any standing whatsoever,” said Australian Cup veteran Alan Bond, spokesman for the group, which included representatives from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand. Bond headed the 1983 challenge effort that won the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club--which had held it for 132 years.

“We as a group do not see the validity of Sail America and its attempts to commercialize the event, more particularly for personal gain for individuals.”

“The situation is very clearly that Sail America sought to obtain substantial financial gain from other countries to have the event outside San Diego,” Bond said. “We as Royal Perth Yacht Club handed the Deed of Gift to San Diego. We didn’t hand it to any company that was there for the profit making.”

The Sail America Foundation is the organization under contract with the San Diego Yacht Club to manage the America’s Cup defense for the yacht club. The foundation was formed by skipper Dennis Conner and San Diego businessman and veteran yachtsman Malin Burnham. It was the syndicate that raised funds and provided the technical and administrative work for Conner’s Stars & Stripes, the boat flying the yacht club’s colors which reclaimed the Cup last February in races off the coast of Fremantle, Australia.

The meeting at the Hotel Pierre is another step in a controversy that has been brewing since the San Diego Yacht Club contested Michael Fay’s New Zealand challenge for the Cup. Fay, head of the Mercury Bay Boating Club, insisted that, as challenger under the rules of the America’s Cup Deed of Gift, he has the right to name the class of boat to be used and the date of the race. Fay chose boats 90 feet long at the waterline, which are considerably larger than the 12-meter yachts sailed in Cup races for the last 30 years, and demanded that the race be held in 1988.

The San Diego Yacht Club contested Fay’s view, but on Nov. 25, Justice Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick of the New York Supreme Court upheld Fay’s right to name the boat class and date of the race. The San Diego Yacht Club acceded to the ruling and accepted the challenge to race in 1988 in 90-foot boats, but now refuses to accept participation in the event by any challenger other than New Zealand.

Hence the meeting of representatives from the six countries eager to mount their own challenges for yachting’s greatest prize. Spokesmen for Britain, Australia, France and New Zealand all stated that they would be at the starting line in San Diego in 1988 in 90-foot yachts. Representatives from Canada and Japan admitted that it would be difficult to construct 90-foot boats in the time that remains before the race, but they wanted to state their support of multichallengers.

“There is no doubt that 1988 would be a very difficult time frame for us to meet, but if we are allowed to participate in the next America’s Cup, we will work very hard to accomplish that,” said Bob Novack of Canada.

The Japanese “would certainly build a 90-foot boat and participate in the event if it were to be held in 1989,” said a spokesman for Susumu Amao and Masakazu Kobayashi of Japan. “1988 would be very difficult for the Japanese. (However) the Japanese are in the America’s Cup business . . . and they find it very strange and difficult that they are being excluded.”

When reminded that the San Diego Yacht Club has chosen not to recognize anyone but New Zealand as a challenger, Bond replied that the yacht club is “only the custodian of the Deed of Gift. They do not own the Deed of Gift. They do not own the Cup. The sooner they recognize that fact, the better off we’ll all be.”

In addition to challenging the role of Sail America in the defense of the Cup and calling for many challengers, the group said it did not support a change in wording to the Deed of Gift, agreed to the dimensions of the yacht as nominated by New Zealand and supported the introduction of any American defenders--other U.S. challengers to the San Diego club--in addition to San Diego for the Cup.

The group also agreed to allow the New Zealand challenge to represent the group’s interest. New Zealand, in turn, agreed to consult the group on all matters of negotiation with the San Diego Yacht Club.

Fay said that he hopes to have a meeting with the San Diego Yacht Club on the way back to New Zealand early next week, perhaps on Monday or Tuesday. However, the yacht club has not formally agreed to such a meeting. The group anticipated that the race would be sailed some time toward the second half of September.

“The Cup has withstood the test of 150 years. It is an event which we and other nations wish to participate in,” Bond said. “Any suggestion that San Diego would attempt to use its position (to alter the rules) would be vigorously challenged in the courts.”