Long Beach Seeks to Be Official Host for America’s Cup

For more than half a century, the picturesque New England coastal town of Newport, R.I., was probably best known as the site of sailing’s top event, the America’s Cup regatta. The city basked in publicity and received millions in tourism dollars.

When the Australians defended the cup for the first time last year, the city of Fremantle was transformed from just another wind-swept western outpost into a world-class party spot. Free-spending race watchers followed the regatta by day and jammed bars and restaurants by night.

Long Beach wants to be next.

With the announcement that a special America’s Cup defense will be staged this summer in San Pedro Bay, Long Beach officials are hustling to have the city designated as the official host.

“We feel we would be the ideal host city for the America’s Cup challenge,” said Mayor Ernie Kell. “We feel it should and will be held in the City of Long Beach.”

While Long Beach appeared to have the inside track, other communities were also in the running.

“We have not talked to other cities but other sites are being considered--all the way from Seal Beach to San Pedro,” said Tom Mitchell, spokesman for Sail America in San Diego, which is organizing the regatta.

Long Beach officials estimate the major sporting event could generate anywhere up to $100 million in business for local merchants. The event would start gearing up when the crews arrive for practice in early June and would last through the races, tentatively scheduled to begin Sept. 4.

Officials also wax enthusiastic at the prospect of 2,500 to 5,000 journalists from around the globe who will not only come to Long Beach to cover the race, but will write and broadcast about the city as well.

“There’s no question this kind of event would put Long Beach on the map and keep it there a very long time,” said Joseph Prevratil, chairman of the board of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and president of Wrather Port Properties, which operates the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose.

All in all, it is pretty heady stuff for a city that had given up all hope of being the host for the famed regatta until about three weeks ago. If it had not been for an unprecedented challenge of the America’s Cup rules by a New Zealander, Long Beach would still be on the sidelines.

When Dennis Conner won back the America’s Cup from the Australians last winter, the San Diego Yacht Club had planned to defend its newly won trophy from an international fleet of 12-meter yacht competitors in its home waters in 1991.

But New Zealand merchant banker Michael Fay, backer of his island nation’s first and surprisingly competitive entry in the regatta last year, won a ruling from the New York Supreme Court that upheld his right to make a challenge for the cup this September under a strict interpretation of the 100-year-old Deed of Trust.

Forced to hold a race this year, Sail America has limited the challenge to Fay’s entry. The group intends to try to beat Fay, then hold the 12-meter competition as scheduled in 1991.

Fay announced that he will compete in September in a boat with a 90-foot waterline, the largest allowed under the deed. In response, Sail America is building two multihull boats--catamarans or trimarans--that, in theory, should easily Top Fay’s entry.

But multihulls come with a hitch: They cannot maintain their heavy advantage over single-hull boats in light winds like those that usually prevail in San Diego during September.

Though the two cities are only about 100 miles apart, the winds in Long Beach normally blow substantially stronger that time of year.

When Sail America announced Jan. 22 that the race site would be off Long Beach or in Hawaii, Long Beach officials were caught by surprise. The America’s Cup Committee appointed last year by Mayor Ernie Kell had all but disbanded after trying to coax Sail America into staging the 1991 races off Long Beach.

Hastily recalled, the committee met two weeks ago to map strategy under the leadership of James Ackerman, a Long Beach attorney who was involved in the Eagle 12-meter syndicate that competed in Fremantle. Ackerman said he has since met several times with Sail America officials.

Other committee members are working in their own areas of expertise. Harbor Commissioner C. Robert Langslet said he has been scouting the harbor for possible sites for boat storage areas and a large press center.

Dick Sargent, president and chief executive officer of the International City Celebration that is organizing the city’s yearlong 100th birthday events, said he hopes to fund local costs of the America’s Cup through the existing fund-raising organization for the city’s centennial.

The Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Council and Chamber of Commerce are being consulted about whether they could meet the demands laid down by Sail America.

Ackerman said that although Sail America has yet to deliver a formal “laundry list,” the foundation has asked Long Beach to provide a base for each of the two sailing teams. The San Diegans alone are planning to bring six boats and have asked for use of a boat yard.

Sail America has also asked for headquarters offices for the teams, a tourism center, referees’ and officials’ stations on the water, an America’s Cup/Long Beach center, 200 reserved hotel rooms, luxury condominiums and houses and the toughest request of all: a 20,000- to 40,000-square-foot press center for television broadcast equipment.

With such a tall order, “that’s why they haven’t chiseled Long Beach in stone,” Ackerman said. But he is quick to add: “No request has been made that we don’t think we can deliver.”

While Sail America negotiates on behalf of the defending San Diego Yacht Club, Skipper Conner is reportedly taking matters into his own hands.

The Times has reported that Conner intends to base his operation at the Marina Shipyard in Alamitos Bay and house his crew and support workers at the Hyatt Edgewater at Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street.

Sargent said that the city’s cost of being host to the America’s Cup could be funded with relative ease through donations to and corporate sponsorship of the existing centennial organization. The outlay would mostly involve promotion and staffing costs, he said.

Long Beach is certainly big enough to handle the crush of tourists that would accompany the event, Sargent said. “We have something like 4,500 first-class hotel rooms plus the surrounding area. There would be plenty of places for tourists who want to come in.”

Ackerman said he has toured possible sites for the various America’s Cup offices and facilities in the harbor with Tom Ehman, executive vice president with Sail America.

Although Mayor Kell requested a media center for up to 2,700 journalists, Ackerman said he can find room for only 1,500.

Prevratil said he would be happy to have the Spruce Goose dome considered. “It certainly is a big enough facility to handle it,” he said. But Ackerman said he wants to use the dome for social functions, not as a press center.

Langslet, anxious to bring the races here to “highlight the renaissance Long Beach is going through,” said he has scouted warehouses as possible press centers and will have port staffers explore how to shuffle ship traffic to accommodate racing and officials’ boats.

The Catalina Landing and Long Beach Marina are also possible sites, Ackerman said. The Navy has offered to consider allowing its docks to be used for a racing team.

Navy Capt. Walter Heinecke, commander of the Long Beach Naval Station, said he is open to allowing the American team use its facilities. He is said he is unsure, however, whether the yard has enough room to handle the 3,000-square-feet of dock space discussed in a preliminary inquiry by the Chamber of Commerce.

As for the New Zealanders, Heinecke said there might be a complication because of security considerations. Also, the island nation’s nuclear-free policy, which has prevented port visits by U. S. warships, has strained military relations lately. In any case, Heinecke said, no formal request for space has been made, and use of facilities by either team would require permission from top naval officials.

Ackerman said the races could take a minimum of two days under a best-of-three contest and about two weeks if the competitors agree on a best-of-seven match. The longer the race lasts, the more money for merchants and more publicity for the city, he said.

Although the races could generate significant revenue for the city, they would be more of a “quick fix” than the kind of sustained 12-meter campaign that San Diego hopes to run in 1991, said Charles Kober, immediate past president of the U. S. Yacht Racing Union and a member of the task force. “It’s not something merchants are going to make their year on,” he said.

Sail America spokesman Tom Mitchell said the City of San Diego conducted a study that predicted $1.4 billion in benefits to the city during the 1991 cup defense. But that was based on 22 syndicates competing, not two as in Long Beach. It was also based on the projection that some teams would arrive two years in advance of the race to train, while only seven months remain until the match off Long Beach.

Kell said the city has a healthy volunteer corps that works in the annual Grand Prix and for the centennial that could be turned loose on the America’s Cup. Also, he said, the city already is known as a major sailing competition area from when it was the host for the sailing events during the Olympic Games in 1984.

While local officials continue to plan for an America’s Cup at top speed, Fay still holds the wild card. He has criticized the decision to move the race up the coast from San Diego. If he sues, the race could be delayed long enough that it might be pushed into next year, which would mean it could be held in May, 1989 at the earliest. In that month, the winds off San Diego are stronger and a Long Beach venue would be more unlikely.

In the meantime, though, Long Beach officials are thinking positively.

“There would be millions and millions of dollars that would be spent in this area,” Kell said. “In addition to that, the press that we would get would have a positive, positive effect on the City of Long Beach.”