Cup Commercialization Headed for the Ashcan

Dennis Conner won the big boat race, but New Zealander Michael Fay triumphed in the battle of one-upmanship when Conner’s catamaran displayed the Marlboro logo as one of his corporate sponsors.

Fay countered by hosting a sail on his boat with a huge surgeon-general’s warning. Conner, after all, had done charity work for the American Cancer Society and poses as an apostle of the healthy life style.

Nasty, nasty words were muttered toward the San Diego skipper --words like hypocrite and money-grubber.

It didn’t help that the Marlboro logo was also emblazoned on the marking buoys, the press center, Sail America stationery and clothing and the pontoons of a large TV screen floating off Seaport Village.

Things have changed.

The agreement announced Friday between the San Diego Yacht Club and the Sail America Foundation to govern the 1991 America’s Cup races off San Diego says that, unless Marlboro mounts and wins a legal challenge, there will be no ads for tobacco products on anything under the control of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, such as the buoys, press center, etc.

The issue of Conner’s controversial sail was not addressed directly. But the agreement says that advertising on sails will be allowed only with the consent of the ACOC and the challenger.

Inescapable conclusion: The next America’s Cup, sails and all, will be smoke-free.

Working With a Net

Anne Boe, the Encinitas-based guru of upward mobility, will have her first book out soon: “Is Your Net-Working?” co-written with Dr. Bettie Youngs of Solana Beach. Published by John Wiley & Sons of New York, available in bookstores later this month.

Boe, the former placement director at Grossmont College, preaches the gospel of success through “working smarter, not harder.” Sample chapter of her book: “Quid Pro Quo (Or, How Useful Are You to Someone Else?)”

“You’ve got to be prepared,” Boe says. “You’ve got to know what . But you’ve also got to know who , and what are the power bases, and what are the means of internal communication.”

Along with writing, Boe is also in demand as a keynote speaker. She’s spoken recently to conventions of the Tupperware Jubilees, the multilevel Marketing International Assn., Meeting Planners International and the Council of Logistics Management.

“Networking is the business tool of the 1990s if you want to keep the competitive edge,” Boe says.

Hospital’s Liquid Asset

When talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey went public last November about how she lost 67 pounds, the phone started to ring at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside. And ring and ring.

“We had hundreds of calls,” says hospital official Jennifer Velez. People wanted the same program as Oprah.

Tri-City is the only North County hospital with the Optifast liquid diet program used by Oprah. It combines exercise, nutrition education and counseling to provide the willpower necessary for weight reduction.

The Oprah-boost was so big that Tri-City, starting next week, will offer a scaled-down version called Optilite, a 16-week, $1,495 program for people who need to lose 20 to 40 pounds. Officials have also hunkered down for another siege of phone calls, because Oprah has just gone on the interview circuit--”PM Magazine,” “Entertainment Tonight,” etc.--with her tale of tonnage.

Keep It Brief

The term legal brief is a misnomer. As any judge will tell you, most of them are anything but brief and instead ramble on for pages and pages, sometimes through arguments unfathomable to anyone but the author.

So the federal judges in San Diego voted last week to establish a “less-is-more” policy: No brief in a civil case can exceed 25 pages, without special consent of the judge. And the reason for requesting an extension had better be very persuasive. One jurist suggested:

“Maybe we should just tell the attorneys: You can write as long as you want, but we stop reading after 25 pages.”