Vessels of All Shapes, Sizes--Including 12 Meters--in Regatta

Ken Guyer delights in watching the reactions every time he takes a new group of people aboard the yacht he skippers, Stars & Stripes ’86. It is the first time most of them have been on a sailboat, let alone one that was built to race for the America’s Cup.

“The looks on their faces go from sheer terror to absolute excitement,” Guyer said. “I can’t wipe the smile off my face, it’s such great sailing.”

Guyer, who leads occasional tours around San Diego Bay on the sleek, 65-foot yacht, has never raced in the America’s Cup. He doesn’t even consider himself a professional skipper. He’s a retired fireman.

But when Stars & Stripes ’86 shoves off to race Heart of America and America II in a special challenge match at noon today on San Diego Bay, Guyer will be at the helm, and his 16-man crew will be those same wide-eyed, howling thrill-seekers.

The three 12-meter, winged-keel yachts, built to contend in 1986-87 America’s Cup competition in Fremantle, Australia, should grab most of the attention while leading a parade of more than 180 sailboats in the fifth BMW regatta, an event race promoters are calling the largest ever on the bay.

A race between three 12-meter yachts has never been staged on the West Coast. Noah Rosenblatt, organizer of the event, said he invited the three partly to celebrate the return of the America’s Cup to San Diego but also because of the 12-meter boats’ place in history.

Before Dennis Conner scrapped his victorious Stars & Stripes ’87 for a catamaran, and Michael Fay putt his 133-foot monohull upon San Diego’s waters, 12-meter boats had been the standard of the 139-year-old event since World War II.

Today there will be no Conners, no Fays, no America’s Controversy. Just ordinary people having what Guyer calls an extraordinary time.

“We’re just everyday sailors, not pros,” he said. “We have everybody from boat-yard foremen to firemen on our crew.”

The crew aboard Heart of America, which was rechristened on Shelter Island April 14 and will race for the first time since Fremantle, will be no different. When it was trucked here from the Riverside area, where it sat in storage for nearly three years, it was stripped of its hardware and needed a complete face lift. Skipper Vince Simms gathered up a motley crew of sailing enthusiasts to help paint it and restore the graphics. Those same people will try to steer the boat to victory today.

Philip Freedman, skipper of America II, remembers the crack crew he put together to beat Stars & Stripes ’86 in the Sunkist American Cancer Society race in San Diego last August.

“We had 14 crewmen for that race,” he said. “Nine people aboard had never been in a sailboat race. When we reached the finish and an official fired a shotgun, which is customary, one of them hit the deck. These same people are my crew now.”

Still, these were among the fastest, most grand monohull racing boats in the world three years ago. They are also among the treacherous to handle, weighing 31 tons with a mast 87 feet tall and a spinnaker of more than 2,200 square feet. Heart of America was the most successful of the three, though it didn’t get past qualifying in 1987; it might have challenged Stars & Stripes ’87 for a berth in the final had it not lost a man overboard in its final preliminary race.

America II was the first to arrive at Fremantle but only served as a training boat for the New York Yacht Club. Stars & Stripes ‘86, one of the largest 12-meters ever built, did test sailing off Hawaii before its best design features went into the construction of Stars & Stripes ’87.

None of these boats appears to have an advantage going into today. America II beat Stars & Stripes ’86 by 21 seconds on similar course in April. But Stars & Stripes ’86 had beaten America three times in last year’s Hot Rum Series in San Diego. Stars & Stripes ’86 also was fastest finisher in the first Newport-to-San Diego race last August in 11 hours 5 minutes, more than an hour ahead of the next-fastest finisher.

Race Notes

More than 1,000 sailors of all skill levels in boats of all sizes have entered , and will be handicapped according to size, design and performance potential for prizes worth a total of $25,000. . . . The race starts off Reuben’s at 880 Harbor Island Drive and passes Shelter Island and Seaport Village. . . . Best viewing is at Seaport Village Embarcadero Marina Park, where boats circle a buoy 200 yards away at approximately 1-1:30 p.m. . . . The race should finish by 3:30 p.m. and will be followed by a party at the Kona Kai Club on Shelter Island from 4-6 p.m. . . . The race is sponsored by the San Diego County BMW Dealers and radio station KFSD-FM and organized by Noah Rosenblatt, the host for a weekly sailing news shows on that station.