SAILING : Women’s Event to Have Three Olympic Classes

Courtenay Becker, J.J. Isler, Jody Swanson, Dawn Riley, Cathy Chapin, Jackie Golison--those names might soon be as familiar in sailing as Topsiders and Catalina.

Female sailors have earned respect in this country. Allison Jolly and Lynne Jewell won America’s only Olympic sailing gold medal in severe conditions at Pusan, South Korea, in 1988. The others will compete in the U.S. Women’s Championships Saturday through next Tuesday at Coronado. The event is sanctioned by the United States Yacht Racing Union and organized by the San Diego Yacht Club.

Competition in the three women’s Olympic classes--two-person 470 dinghy, single-handed Europe dinghy and sailboard--will be run out of Fiddler’s Cove Marina on the Silver Strand in lower San Diego Bay.

Jolly and Jewell won the first women’s Olympic sailing competition in a 470. The other two classes have been added for Barcelona in ’92.

Becker, 1990 yachtswoman of the year, and Riley, the only American on Britain’s all-woman Maiden in the ‘89-90 Whitbread Round the World race, sail Europe dinghies. Isler and Swanson sail 470s, along with Golison. Chapin sails a board.

Credit is due Ed Feo for completing the Long Beach Yacht Club’s 27th Congressional Cup in time for the trophy dinner this month.

After two days of racing, Friday was lost when the wind blew too hard, so Feo, the principal race officer, had to get in the three final rounds of round-robin racing plus a semifinal race and the three-race final, all on Saturday.

Feo engineered a delicate balance between having viable competition and dealing with light winds of five-10 knots that shifted south from east persistently, requiring frequent re-sets of the course. He had enough wind to start an hour early at 10 a.m. and shortened the courses from three to two laps, which probably didn’t affect any of the results.

Feo shortened the final, championship race to 1 1/2 laps and squeezed the last breath of air out of the day. Chris Dickson sailed across the line well ahead of Russell Coutts as the sun set and the wind died for good.

Sailing Notes

SEMINARS, ETC.--Orange Coast College and West Marine Products are co-sponsoring the only West Coast U.S. Yacht Racing Union Safety at Sea seminars April 13 and 14 at the school’s sailing center in Newport Beach. Lecturers will demonstrate emergency and life-saving techniques. Fee is $38 in advance or $43 at the door for either day. Details: (714) 645-9412. . . . The Assn. of Santa Monica Bay Yacht Clubs will conduct its annual “Medical Emergencies at Sea” seminar next Tuesday, 7 p.m., at King Harbor YC in Redondo Beach and April 23 at Del Rey YC in Marina del Rey. Details: (213) 512-1748. . . . USYRU President Bill Martin will speak at the Southern California Yachting Assn.’s monthly dinner meeting April 5 at the Long Beach Yacht Club. . . . Three-time Congressional Cup winner Rod Davis will be featured at a pre-race seminar for the U.S. Women’s Championships at the San Diego YC Friday night at 6:30.

RACING--Dennis Durgan and crew from Newport Harbor YC beat San Diego’s Peter Isler by half a boat length in the final nine-mile race to win the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy event at Long Beach last weekend. Long Beach YC’s Mike Elias was third among six boats. Durgan won two of three races. It was the first use of the Catalina 37s for fleet racing. They were primarily built for match racing in the Congressional Cup but are available for other events at $3,500 per boat. . . . The Alamitos Bay YC will hold its 31st annual Olympic Classes Regatta April 5-7, followed by Pan American Games team trials for Finn and men and women’s 470 at Newport Beach April 10-14, along with Olympic pre-trials for women’s Europe dinghy. Tornado Olympic pre-trials will be run the same week by the California YC at Marina del Rey.

The Port Royal YC of Redondo Beach is joining with the Seal Beach YC for the first--guess what--Port Royal-to-Seal Beach race Saturday, with classes for PHRF handicap boats and one-design fleets with three or more entries. . . . The ULDB 70s Assn. will run its first North Sails San Diego Sprint race from Long Beach to San Diego April 6.

Pacific Mariners YC in Marina del Rey will continue the 21st Chuck Stein series for Performance Handicap Racing Fleet and one-design boats April 6, 13 and 20. Details: (818) 500-7324. . . . The Long Beach YC starts its Catalina Island series of five weekend events with the Long Point race April 13-14.

NOTEWORTHY--Australian America’s Cup campaigner Peter Gilmour, sailing a 12-meter for the filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, “Wind,” at Fremantle, Western Australia, accidentally ran over two stuntmen in a chase boat. They were seriously injured but listed in satisfactory condition. . . . American Mike Plant, 40, has moved up to third place in the BOC Challenge single-handed race around the world. France’s Alain Gautier has taken over the lead from South Africa’s John Martin, whose boat sank in the Southern Ocean, possibly after hitting an iceberg. He was rescued. The 18-boat fleet will start the final leg from Punta del Este, Uruguay to Newport, R.I., Saturday.

Tom Fetter of Kettenburg Marine in San Diego has donated a trophy in the name of the late Peggy Slater to be awarded annually for selected events. . . . Scott Steele, an ’84 Olympic silver medalist, received the U.S. Yacht Racing Union’s sportsmanship award. Steele’s testimony for Grzegorz Myszkowski after an incident during the Goodwill Games allowed the Pole to win and cost Steele the gold medal.