Crowd Is Oblivious to Races : Sailing: Seaport Village visitors pay little heed to World Championship.

Crowds milled through the novelty shops at Seaport Village at a pace more befitting a snail race on a lazy Sunday than a world-class yacht race on a busy Saturday.

Yet it didn’t take this cross-section of people long to discover that America’s Finest City can be America’s Most Surprising City as well. In the midst of their fun and frolic, a yacht race had broken out.

Shhh. Don’t tell. It’s a secret. Well, almost.

“I didn’t know a thing about it until someone told me,” said La Costa’s Nancy Sullivan, who was attending a fashion show in the nearby San Diego Convention Center.

Sullivan certainly wasn’t alone in her ignorance. That the final race day of the International America’s Cup Class World Championship was broadcast on a huge wide screen television set up in the America’s Cup International Village--located directly behind Seaport Village--seemed to be information to which few were privy.

“It’s a great event,” said Sullivan. “But they didn’t advertise it enough.”

There’s a reason.

“Our focus has always been the America’s Cup, not World Championships,” said Tom Ehman, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee’s executive director. “We’re not promoting for the Worlds, but for next year. That was our attitude all along.”

Had the championships been over-hyped, Ehman said the ACOC was in no condition to deal with a huge influx of people in the village.

“This is the first time San Diego has ever hosted an international event of this magnitude,” said Ehman, who rated the ACOC’s effort as good but not flawless. “It takes time to do everything right. This was a great learning process.”

Thwarting the ACOC’s public relations efforts further was daily insistence by the majority of skippers that this regatta was nothing more than a “warm-up” for the America’s Cup trials next year.

“There’s nothing at stake,” said John Intrabartolo, who was doing a less-than-brisk business in front of the Marriott selling T-shirts. “If they don’t care, why should anyone else? A lot of people think it’s just an exhibition. That’s the feeling I’ve been getting--that it just doesn’t count.”

By 3 p.m., Intrabartolo sold 10 shirts, not even enough to pay the baby-sitter. By 5 p.m., with the race over and closing ceremonies drawing nearer, business had picked up.

“I won’t be going on a vacation with (sales profits),” Intrabartolo said. “But the baby-sitter will get paid.”

The ACOC specifically, and the sailing world in general, constantly battles negative public perception stemming from isolation and ignorance.

“I love boats,” said Dave Messier, a visitor from Jersey City, N.J. “But I don’t understand a thing about yacht racing. It’s a participant sport, not a spectator sport. If you want to make it more appealing to the masses, you have to let them see it, and when you do that, you have to educate them as to what’s going on.”

Several plans are in the works to educated the masses. The ACOC and the Port District are working on a $460,000 joint education project aimed at kindergartners through 12th graders. Another program, which will compare the technology of Pacific Rim, European and American countries, is aimed at older students. For adults, there is the newly opened America’s Cup Museum.

“That’s when it starts to become user-friendly,” Ehman said.

That the sport embraces only a small segment of society with impressive financial portfolios may be a bad rap--and one it is trying to shake--but it’s partially accurate.

“It’s still a rich man’s sports, that’s for sure,” said Marilyn Whitmore of Simi Valley.

Said Nancy Kunesh of Costa Mesa: “It seems like only the rich can afford it. All the races are organized by yacht clubs, and they’re all private.”

San Diego’s own Team Dennis Conner--the only American syndicate to make the final four--withdrew from the competition, tainting it more.

“Dennis isn’t here, so a lot of people probably think that if he’s not here, why bother?” said Suzanne Dixon of Irvine. “It definitely hurt to have this in his own hometown and he doesn’t show.”

Turnout at the village was less than expected but not necessarily disappointing to organizers.

“It’s a typical San Diego response,” Ehman said. “There are so many things going on in town. . . The Padres are doing well, everyone had to expect this.”