San Diego Awarded America’s Cup : Yacht racing: New York court ends dispute over catamaran entry in 1988 match against New Zealand.

New York’s top court today awarded the America’s Cup to the San Diego Yacht Club, ruling that the club legally won yacht racing’s most coveted prize and that sportsmanship was none of the court’s business to decide.

Possession of the trophy, which was fought for as hard in the courts as on the water, is worth millions of dollars to the host community during cup defenses.

The 5-2 ruling by New York’s Court of Appeals ends a legal battle for the 139-year-old silver trophy that began even before the San Diego Yacht Club’s speedy catamaran trounced the huge single-hulled yacht from New Zealand’s Mercury Bay Club in September, 1988.

“The question of whether particular conduct is ‘sporting’ or ‘fair’ . . . is wholly distinct from the question of whether it is legal,” said Judge Fritz Alexander, writing for the court majority.

The decision clears the way for San Diego to stage the next America’s Cup defense in May, 1992, under a revised set of rules. Competitors will sail in identical boats larger than the 12-meter yachts used since World War II.

According to the America’s Cup Deed of Trust, a 19th-Century document, the New York Court of Appeals is the final arbiter of cup disputes.

Challenger Michael Fay, in a statement this morning from Auckland, New Zealand, said, “The ruling is final, and we accept it.” He said he looked forward to the 1992 race.

Officials of the San Diego Yacht Club were jubilant.

“We were not happy with the challenge by Fay obviously,” Vice Commodore Sandy Purdon said, “but I think this now goes in the record book as a correct action that San Diego took.”

The catamaran Stars and Stripes, with Dennis Conner as captain, easily defeated Mercury Bay’s yacht New Zealand in two match races in the Pacific Ocean just off San Diego in 1988.

The legal battle had begun the previous year. In February, 1987, Conner’s San Diego club had won the cup back from Australia, avenging a loss four years earlier when the Aussies became the first racers from outside the United States to take possession of the cup.

Then, five months later, Fay issued an unwelcome challenge to the San Diegans, calling for a radical departure from the traditional America’s Cup format. He wanted the race held in 1988 instead of waiting four years until 1991, and he wanted to use a boat roughly twice the size as the 12-meter yachts that had been in use in recent years.

San Diego rejected the challenge but lost in the first round of court battles. The club then made a countermove, deciding to use a twin-hulled catamaran, which is far faster and more maneuverable that a large single-hulled yacht. That led to the one-sided victory in the race in 1988 that was upheld today.

Fay had complained that by using the catamaran, San Diego made a farce of the race and broke rules of sportsmanship.

In fact, the disparity between the two crafts was so large that Chief Judge Sol Wachtler, during court arguments in February, said racing a mono-hull against a catamaran was “like putting a New York City bus against a Ferrari.”

Lower state courts had split on the question of who deserved the cup. In March, 1989, state Supreme Court Justice Carmen Ciparick disqualified Conner and awarded the trophy to Mercury Bay. But a mid-level New York appeals court reversed that decision in September and returned the trophy to San Diego.

In a 31-page dissent to today’s opinion, Judge Stewart Hancock Jr. said San Diego had a higher obligation to attempt to make the race a fair match because the yacht club was the defender of the cup and therefore its trustee.