SAILING / RICH ROBERTS : Owners Must Sail Boats in This Regatta

The owner of a big racing sailboat often faces a choice: Does he want to sail it himself or does he want to win?

Being the skipper is one of the rewards for pouring a few hundred thousand dollars into one’s weekend hobby. Hiring one is the resignation that maybe a world-class sailor could hop aboard and steer it around the course faster.

The nice thing about this weekend’s Kenneth Watts Perpetual Trophy Regatta for ULDB 70s out of the Los Angeles Yacht Club is that it offers no such choice. The owners must sail their own boats.

It’s one of only five points events for the sled association. Hal Ward on Cheval and Mitch Rouse on Taxi Dancer will continue their fight for the season championship in four races over Saturday and Sunday. Ten ultralights will sail windward-leeward courses outside the breakwater.

Cheval leads the standings but Rouse’s Taxi Dancer has emerged as the best all-round boat in the fleet. She showed her power in buoy racing in strong winds by dominating the recent Big Boat series at San Francisco with four victories and a third, and also has paced downwind races with victories in the 1989 Transpac and this year’s Newport-to-Ensenada race.

But those events didn’t count for points, and Rouse had to drop out of one that did--the slow, light-air Oakland-to-Catalina race--because of a business commitment. The only other event remaining is next month’s Los Angeles-to-Cabo San Lucas race.

Sailing Notes

SLEDS--John Reichel and Jim Pugh seem poised to break the domination of the fleet by designs from Bill Lee--the Santa Cruz 70s--and Nelson-Marek. Taxi Dancer is a Reichel-Pugh 68, the only one in the fleet. The San Diego pair also designed Abracadabra, which just won the highly competitive International 50s title with John Kolius at the helm. Abracadabra sailed only five of the seven races but won four.

Reichel and Pugh also were designing a new America’s Cup class boat for Larry Klein’s Triumph of America syndicate and will now collaborate with Bill Koch’s design team in the America 3program (see below).

Standings after three of five events, with one throw-out scored (points awarded 18-15-13-11-10-9, etc): Cheval, 33; Evolution, 31; Grand Illusion, 28; Taxi Dancer, Chance and Holua, 26; Blondie and Ole, 16; Pyewacket, 15; Mongoose, 11 (no others contending). Evolution’s points are frozen since Bob Doughty sold it to Brack Duker, who will sail it this weekend.

AMERICA’S CUP--There is still hope that the defense fleet may round out to four boats. Three now seem solid, with energy billionaire Bill Koch swinging a three-way merger with Larry Klein’s Triumph America syndicate and Buddy Melges from Cleveland’s defunct Yankee syndicate.

Also, although she hasn’t found $6 million to qualify, Shelley Stepanek says her Betsy Ross syndicate is still alive, with sailmaker Dave Ullman of Newport Beach as helmsman, Peter Tong of Long Beach on the management team and a few prominent woman crew members. Tong owns the sled Blondie. Ullman runs an international sailmaking business and would like to crack North’s stranglehold on the Cup.

Koch’s new group calls itself America --America to the third power or, in early dock jargon, “America Cubed.” His Matador recently won the World Maxi title. Klein and Melges are listed as helmsmen and Gary Jobson as “co-skipper,” presumably with Koch, who likes to sail his own boats. Jobson, who has been explaining sailing to America since the ’87 America’s Cup, apparently won’t be involved in the 100-plus hours of live television ESPN has just announced for the Cup leading into ’92.

Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia was so miffed when France sold its first boat to the Beach Boys syndicate and announced a joint training program that it withdrew from the European A.C. Class Championship scheduled next month. The Italians imply that the French sold out the rest of the challengers by collaborating with a defense group.

Check your calendar: To accommodate TV, the International America’s Cup Class championship at San Diego has been moved up a week to May 4-11 next year.

COMING EVENTS--The new Catalina 50, Morgan 45, Crealock 44, Schock 55 and Hobie’s 17-foot Sport Cat will be featured at the 22nd Long Beach Boat Show Oct. 19-28 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Admission: $5; children under 12 free. . . . Saturday, Oct. 20, off Balboa Pier, Newport Ocean Sailing Assn. 14-Mile Bank Race, for Ocean Racing Catamaran Assn. and PHRF cruiser-type boats with minimum 20-foot waterlines or 24 feet overall. Details: (714) 640-1351. . . . Oct. 27-28, Marina del Rey, Assn. of Santa Monica Bay Yacht Clubs-West Marine Products Championship Regatta, for ASMBYC boats with “trophy status” in last year and selected wild-card entries. . . . Oct. 27-28, Mission Bay YC’s Carolyn Nute Memorial Regatta for fall Snipe class title. Details: (619) 226-2422. . . . Nov. 3-4, Marina del Rey, South Bay YRC’s Matchless Match Race for one-design fleets. Details: (213) 578-5796. . . . Nov. 9-10, Los Angeles Harbor, LAYC’s Los Angeles-to-Cabo San Lucas via Guadalupe Island race for IOR boats rated 28.0 to 70.0 and PHRF boats rated 150 and under. Entry fee: $450. Details: (213) 377-0721).