New America’s Cup Group Formed

Are San Diego’s America’s Cup interests cleaning up their act?

Many of the problems of last September’s tainted defense against New Zealand resulted from the Sail America Foundation’s perceived arrogance in managing the affair for the San Diego Yacht Club--among other things, in hand-picking Dennis Conner to defend, then allowing him to sail a catamaran.

Many club members were left outraged, embarrassed or both.

Last week a consolidation of the three main entities--SDYC, Sail America and the city’s America’s Cup Task Force--into a single new America’s Cup Organizing Committee was announced. The group, with a 16-member board of directors, will oversee the next defense in 1991--assuming that New York Supreme Court Judge Carmen Ciparick OKs the catamaran and allows San Diego to keep the cup.

The power will still be with the old Sail America people. President Malin Burnham will chair the new ACOC board. Executive Vice President Tom Ehman will continue to run things day to day.

“But I can tell you it’s different,” said Dr. Fred Frye, an ACOC board member who was SDYC commodore when Conner won the Cup at Fremantle, Australia, 2 years ago. “We’re all sitting at the same table now.”

Conner’s profile may be lowered and Sail America will cease to exist, as will chairman Gerry Driscoll’s America’s Cup Defense Committee, which wound up gutted of authority--oddly, after an initial big row about who should be on it.

That’s one wound that may not heal. Driscoll was not nominated to the ACOC board, although two of his committee members were--Kim Fletcher and Gene Trepte. But Driscoll is highly regarded in the sailing community and may yet have a meaningful place somewhere in the new scheme.

“Sure, I’d like to be involved the next time around,” he said.

Maybe Driscoll, a former America’s Cup campaigner, will form his own defense syndicate and hire a skipper to compete with Conner’s Stars & Stripes team. He attended a meeting of potential American challengers --potential, if New Zealand KOs the catamaran--held by the Kiwis at Marina del Rey this week.

Others there included Tom Blackaller of San Francisco, James Michaels of the New York YC and Dave Vietor of Boston--all rooting for the Kiwis to win in court so they could go to Auckland and win the Cup for their own American clubs.

With the Soviet Union planning to compete in ‘91, in a Soviet-San Diego final the other Americans could even wind up rooting for the Soviet boat.

The Deed of Gift says the Cup is a competition “between foreign countries.” San Diego was able to win it only after New York lost it to the Royal Perth YC of Australia. Blackaller, speaking for most of the others, has said he has no interest in competing to defend the Cup for San Diego, where Conner is king.

Burnham said: “No one has a lock on being the defender, including Dennis Conner. We need competition between defense syndicates. Competition improves the team.”

If Burnham and the ACOC really mean that, they should move to dump the senseless policy that forces a defender to defend only for the club that holds the Cup.

A press release on the new plan didn’t mention Conner at all. Is there a sense that he has become bigger--figuratively--than the America’s Cup itself? For the last defense he was skipper and chief event fund raiser, through his Dennis Conner Sports Inc. marketing organization.

“Dennis probably symbolizes the America’s Cup in the United States,” Fletcher said. “I didn’t dream he’d get as many endorsements as he has.”

The ACOC, created by agreement between the SDYC and Sail America, is a step toward correcting a situation that caused a lot of hard feelings and confused outsiders. Credit goes to Ehman, who brought everybody together and crafted the guidelines for the new organization.

Two of the 14 clauses in the agreement seem to address Conner’s role specifically. One notes that any funding of defense syndicates by the ACOC must be distributed equally, except by consent of the SDYC board, but the next one is the crunch: “Fund raising for both the event and one or more syndicates by the same commercial fund-raising organization requires the consent of SDYC.”

“And there’s no way they’d let him do both,” an ACOC insider said.

In other words, Conner would have to decide whether to raise funds for the ACOC or only for his own Stars & Stripes syndicate. That could pose a problem for him, since DC Sports collects 20% off the top, and also for the ACOC, since Conner is still sailing’s best fund raiser.

The ACOC may be counting on making up the difference with TV contracts.

Should Conner decide to raise money only for Stars & Stripes, he would start with a huge edge on defense rivals, although that could be mitigated by the new America’s Cup practice--the catamaran plastered with advertising last year.

A group of 25 potential challengers met in San Diego last weekend and discussed permitting ads on hulls and spinnakers only.

Apparently, they aren’t quite ready for a Foster & Kleiser Cup, but they’ll have to find some way to pay for the new America’s Cup class boats, which will cost $2 million-$2.5 million each.

The leading order of business in San Diego was supposed to be to approve the new boat, which is bigger and faster than a 12-meter and is a consensus of input from most of the world’s major designers of ocean racing sailboats.

That matter took about 5 minutes, and the syndicate representatives also readily approved a best-of-7 format around an 8-legged course, rather than last September’s sleepy cruise to Mexico. The rest of the time was spent talking about advertising.

The SDYC and Mercury Bay Club indicated that they have no problem with any of the above, whichever defends in ’91.

The four Soviet Union syndicates--four separate efforts under a common “Sail USSR” banner--are represented by a Finnish businessman from Seattle named Reijo Salminen. They got a 90-day extension to come up with their entry fees of $25,000 apiece, claiming a problem with red tape.

One curious clause of the ACOC agreement would prohibit the organization from “entering into marketing contracts which involve the promotion, sale or use of tobacco products.”

Marlboro was a major sponsor of the ’88 defense and much in evidence on land, sea and in the air.

Sailing Notes

Solo sailor Guy Bernardin reported passing the Equator this week, heading south in his attempt to break the 19th Century record from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. Bernardin, whose boat was sunk at the Cape in an attempt last year, was averaging 8 knots, which would put him ahead of the 89-day record, but has had to put into shore twice for minor repairs to his 60-foot craft. Three Floridians sailing 60-foot Thursday’s Child passed the Horn 7 days ahead of the record schedule, despite losing 3 days for hull repairs in the Falklands. Latest to leave New York on Jan. 1 was Anne Llardet with crewman Joseph Le Guen in a 50-foot trimaran.

TV sailing commentator Gary Jobson will present the only Southern California appearance of his “Wide World of Sailing” program at the Balboa Yacht Club Feb. 3. Tickets are $10 and available at West Marine Products stores, with some proceeds going to area youth sailing organizations. . . . Dennis Conner will sail an 8-race match series in the Kookaburra 12-meters against Australia’s Iain Murray in Sydney Harbor Jan. 26-29.

California Yacht Club’s third annual Mini America’s Cup match racing series is scheduled Feb. 4, starting at 11:30 a.m., but don’t look for any 12-meters. The event is sailed in Capri 14.2 dinghies, inside the marina near the CYC dock. Defending champion Craig Leweck, Stars & Stripes navigator Peter Isler and wife J.J. Isler, will compete.