America’s Cup Sides Agree to Three Races

America’s Cup organizers Friday ended attempts to convince New Zealand challengers to allow more sailing than the three races specified by the rules document governing the competition.

The resolution means that next month’s match between Michael Fay’s monohulled sloop and the San Diego Yacht Club’s catamaran will be sailed according to the format outlined in the century-old Deed of Gift, challenger officials said.

Racing is scheduled to begin Sept. 7 off San Diego.

The deed allows terms and conditions of the competition to be changed by mutual consent. Without such agreement, however, the deed’s guidelines take precedence.

New Zealand also rejected a request from defense manager Sail America to increase the number of legs composing the Pacific Ocean race course.

“Unfortunately, we are racing in boats which are very dissimilar, and the catamaran has a huge speed advantage over our monohull,” said Fay’s attorney, Andrew Johns.

“Moving away from the Deed of Gift courses would have given us an even greater handicap.”

Johns, a member of Fay’s Mercury Bay Boating Club rules committee, said he was pleased that the two basic issues of course design and number of races were resolved “so we can move into the detailed issues of setting out the fair conduct of the races themselves.”

“We are only a few weeks from the start, and although we have reached agreement on many substantial matters, there are several points to be settled,” Johns said.

Under terms of Friday’s resolution, the first race will involve a two-leg, 40-mile windward-leeward course. On Sept. 9, the challenger and defender will sail a triangular course of 13 miles per leg. The third race, if necessary, would be sailed Sept. 11 on a windward-leeward course the same as the first.

“We have our race dates, we have our race times, we have our course configurations,” Sail America spokeswoman Becky Heyl said.

“We wanted a four out of seven series because we thought it made the race more exciting and more watchable for America’s Cup enthusiasts, but it’s still going to be a good race.”