AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : Soviets Staring at ‘Keep Out’ Sign : Sailing: Navy, Coast Guard keeps Cup team out of San Diego Bay.

The Soviets are coming to the America’s Cup. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard almost wish they weren’t.

The first Soviet boat to compete for the Cup is scheduled to be flown into San Diego by the end of the month, creating history and a headache.

The Coast Guard and Navy say the boat can’t come into San Diego Bay for security reasons. They would permit the Soviets to base in Mission Bay, but the Soviets’ skipper and their American adviser say they are victims of discrimination.

“The Navy has pictured this as an enterprise of spies,” said Doug Smith, a San Diego marine insurance agent. “We’ve offered to let the Navy ride on this boat, let ‘em be on it 24 hours a day, let ‘em inspect it at any time, unannounced.”

It’s not that simple, said Cmdr. Bud Chrisman of the U.S. Naval Station in San Diego and Coast Guard Cmdr. Don Montoro, the captain of the port and chairman of the Port Security Committee that includes the departments of Defense, Justice, State and Customs.

“I’m following the policy as directed by my superiors,” Montoro said.

The policy was developed after World War II, when the Soviet Union closed all 12 of its ports to foreign-flagged vessels. The U.S. responded by closing 12 of its ports, including San Diego.

Chrisman said, “We had a large military presence in San Diego, and during the (last) 45 years we have moved just about every classified project we have into the San Diego area . . . research and development, laser technology, underwater technology, special warfare technology. So the Navy has some real security concerns about allowing the Soviets in here.”

Smith said the project has no connection with the Soviet government and that the FBI has cleared a list of 26 Soviet sailors as non-security risks, free to move about the San Diego area through the conclusion of Cup competition in May 1992.

But Soviet fishing trawlers for years have been suspected of conducting electronic surveillance, and Chrisman said the same might be possible with a sailboat.

“These America’s Cup boats, they have telemetry equipment on board because they’ve got to be able to pick up a hundredth knot increase in speed,” Chrisman said. “These are very sophisticated machines. They could collect information (by picking up) . . . our electromagnetic spectrum we put out.”

The Soviet skipper, Guram Biganishvili, sailed in San Diego Bay as recently as 1989 in the Star spring championships for the two-man, Olympic class boats. At the time, he was a Red Army officer, although he never wore a uniform. His duty was to sail.

Smith, a member of the San Diego Yacht Club, got involved with the Soviets when the commodore asked who would help to host them.

“I was the only guy,” Smith said. “One thing led to another.”

Biganishvili recalled that one day after sailing he was followed back into the bay by a nuclear submarine. Nobody seemed concerned about his presence then.

“The policy allows for limited time-frame specific events,” Montoro said. “(With the America’s Cup), you’re looking at a year in and out of the bay.”

Also, last summer, three Soviet warships visited San Diego Bay, but Chrisman said that was for only five days.

“And every one of ‘em was in uniform when they went ashore and they had U.S. escorts everyplace,” Chrisman said. “(With the Cup), you’re talking about bringing in a Soviet syndicate with 30 to 130 people in civilian clothes going any place they want for 18 months.”

Biganishvili, who has been learning to speak English, said, “Today we have very difficult time in Soviet (Union). But by working very hard, very slow we are ready for American (sic) Cup. We have home problem, and we have here problem . . . Mission Bay. This is not good.

“I don’t understand why all (are allowed) here and not the Russians. If not possible San Diego Bay, we don’t stay Mission Bay.”

Smith said a local restaurant has offered to feed a free breakfast to the Soviet crew every day, and a motel has offered cut-rate prices on rooms. But if the problem can’t be resolved, he said, the Soviets might train out of Los Angeles or Long Beach harbors, which aren’t on the closed-port list.

Chrisman says, “Doug Smith wants to make this a media extravaganza and get enough popular support on his side to get the policy changed.”

Chrisman says a Mission Bay location at the Knight and Carver shipyard is “ideal” because it’s such a short distance from the ocean, where the races will be run. But Smith noted Monday that no boats had been able to leave Mission Bay the past three days because of waves surging down the channel from recent storms.

Smith says Knight and Carver would be too expensive, that he has a better offer at Kettenburg Marine in San Diego Bay, behind his office, and that Mission Bay is too isolated from the everyday action.

Tom Fetter, owner of Kettenburg, said he talked to a Soviet representative only once, about two months ago, and there was nothing definitive.

Chrisman says the Soviets actually have been offered a good deal in Mission Bay--and that the well-funded Nippon Challenge, which could afford to go anywhere, chose to be in Mission Bay, as will some late-arriving syndicates.

Smith said, “The Nippon group can also come into San Diego (Bay) any time they want to. The New Zealand group and the Italian group are sailing in the bay every day. They don’t always go outside. The water’s flat. They get better crew training.

“We’re gonna be here a year. We want to interact with the yachting community . . . be part of the festivities on a daily basis, not just be isolated in Mission Bay and have to sail out the channel (and) out of sight of everybody. It’s convenient to get to the ocean but there’s a hell of a lot more than that in life.”

Said Chrisman: “If he wants to go to a parade of boats, opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, boat measurements, the Navy is willing to recommend to let ‘em in during those times. They may have a Coast Guard escort on ‘em, but we’re willing to let ‘em in.”

The America’s Cup Organizing Committee, which manages the event for the San Diego Yacht Club, and the Challenger of Record Committee, which represents challengers’ interests, are keeping a low profile in the dispute.

Ernie Taylor, executive director of the CORC, said, “It was resolved by the challengers that they support the Russians’ entrance to San Diego Bay because we believe the rules of the regatta ought to be exactly the same for all the challengers.”

Pete Litrenta, the ACOC’s vice president of communications, has brought the Soviet organization and officials from the Navy and Coast Guard together this week for meetings on the subject.

“I’m a retired naval officer and I can understand (the concern),” Litrenta said. “The Coast Guard and the Navy have really bent over backwards--gone more than halfway--to accommodate the Soviet Challenge.

“We owe it to the challengers who all said they want the Soviets treated just like everybody else.”

The ACOC has asked local congressmen Duncan Hunter (D-El Cajon) and Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) to help.

Chrisman said the ACOC also has tried to go over his head.

“They went all the way back . . . to Washington D.C. to the highest level of admirals and the Department of Defense. All these top-level admirals reviewed it and said, no, we’ve got too many secure things here.”

Smith hoped to avoid a problem by re-registering the Soviet boat with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, as all private boats are, with a “CF” identification number.

“(But) if he’s now calling himself an American boat, he’s no longer a challenger,” Chrisman said. “He’s a defender.”

Smith said the security concerns are unreasonable, especially because he--an American--was allowed into the Soviet space vehicle factory, Energia, where their boat is being built.

Chrisman said he has arranged for the city to hold a spot on Mission Bay for the Soviets until May 1. But they must submit a formal request.

“We’ve asked them on a number of occasions to do that,” Litrenta said.

If they persist in entering San Diego Bay, they may be in trouble.

“The Coast Guard’s position is, if they put the boat in the water, they’ll be given a letter by the captain of the port ordering them to remove the boat from San Diego and not to return,” Chrisman said. “If they fail to obey that, the Coast Guard and Customs will seize the boat.”