San Pedro Bay Chosen as America’s Cup Site

Sail America made it official Friday: Because San Pedro Bay has better wind than San Diego, that’s where it will meet New Zealand’s challenge for the America’s Cup next September.

San Pedro Bay is the area from Pt. Fermin at the southern tip of San Pedro--known to local sailors as “Hurricane Gulch”--to Seal Beach, encompassing the federal breakwater.

The next step will be to select a so-called host city, which would be the shore base for the race headquarters and media center.

It’s clear that among cities along the San Pedro Bay coastline, Long Beach is best equipped to accommodate an international media event. Tom Mitchell, media consultant to Sail America, recently estimated he would receive up to 6,000 applications for credentials.

Sail America and the San Diego Yacht Club, for whom Dennis Conner won the Cup back from the Australians last year, preferred to defend it first in home waters but feel they have been forced by Auckland merchant banker Michael Fay into a calculated gamble.

They had planned a conventional all-comers defense in 12-meter boats in 1991. But Fay, citing terms of the Deed of Gift that has governed Cup competition for the past century, surprised them last July by challenging them on 10 months’ notice, declaring he would sail a boat with a 90-foot waterline.

When San Diego ignored the challenge, Fay won a judgment from the New York Supreme Court ordering San Diego to defend against him or forfeit the Cup. The 10-month clock was stopped during the case and now comes out to Sept. 15, which Fay designated as the date of the first race.

San Diego responded by saying it would defend against Fay but nobody else, angering other potential challengers but limiting the threats to the Cup. Subsequent decisions to build a catamaran to meet Fay’s monohull and to defend in San Pedro Bay also are based on protecting San Diego’s grand plan for ‘91, which could be worth $1.2 billion to the local economy, according to one study.

Sail America recently proposed delaying the defense in the larger boats until 1990, with everybody invited, but Fay refused to give up the time advantage he holds in building his boat. The “New Zealand” is scheduled to be launched March 27. San Diego’s first multihull is only about to start construction.

Because of the time bind, San Diego opted to build a catamaran, which is simpler and basically faster than a monohull--although Fay’s boat is expected by both sides to be faster than any monohull ever built.

Also, San Diego felt its catamaran would need more wind than San Diego could produce to reach optimum performance. Experts say San Diego’s wind seldom gets above 10 knots in September, while at Long Beach it usually blows 15 knots or better.

“We can’t race in San Diego in September because there is not enough wind for these 21st Century, super high-performance craft that both New Zealand and Stars & Stripes are designing,” said Tom Ehman, executive vice president of Sail America, “and (Fay) isn’t going to budge on the date.

“A lot of (San Diego) people are disappointed, including those of us at Sail America. It’s a terrible thing for the city of San Diego. But it’s the best thing in terms of ’91.”

Ehman said he met Thursday with Jim Ackerman, chairman of Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell’s Select Committee, to outline America’s Cup needs. Leading concerns are spaces for a media center and headquarters.

Long Beach, site of the ’84 Olympic sailing events and the annual prestigious Congressional Cup match racing series, will have about 2,500 hotel rooms by September.

But laying out America’s Cup race courses in the San Pedro Channel according to the Deed of Gift will require some thought. While Fay can pick the date, San Diego can pick the exact location of the courses.

Unless both sides agree--and they haven’t agreed on anything yet--the first and third races of a best-of-three series would be 20 miles to windward and back.

The organizers will want to avoid the commercial shipping lanes leading into Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, but a 20-mile windward-leeward course set between them into the prevailing southwest wind would extend almost directly to Catalina Island.

Ehman pointed out that for years the New York Yacht Club staged Cup defenses at Newport, R.I., “which is a four-hour drive from New York. Here we’ll have a two-hour drive. San Pedro Bay is the closest place to San Diego with good breeze at that time of year.”