AMERICA’S CUP : Financial Problems Force Japan Group’s Withdrawal

Japan’s Bengal Bay Challenge has withdrawn from the 1992 America’s Cup off San Diego, citing “financial difficulties.”

Japan’s other syndicate, the Nippon Challenge, which has New Zealand’s Chris Dickson as skipper, is one of the 11 remaining challengers for the competition starting next January. There are two defense syndicates--Team Dennis Conner and Bill Koch’s America-3.

Bengal Bay, headed by industrialist Masakazu Kobayashi, was the first syndicate to announce a challenge, in December 1986 during the Cup competition off Fremantle, Australia. Kobayashi later bought the 12-meters Australia II and Australia III for training crews under Rod Davis, the expatriate American sailor now living in New Zealand.

Bengal Bay arranged to borrow a boat from New Zealand for last month’s International America’s Cup Class World Championships off San Diego, but training was curtailed several months ago, and there were indications that the syndicate would fold.

In other Cup developments:

--Great Britain’s Port Pendennis Challenge, led by Peter de Savary, announced that it has started construction of its boat.

--Yugoslavia’s sponsoring Galeb Yacht Club balked at syndicate plans to represent the republic of Croatia rather than Yugoslavia because of ongoing political disputes. However, syndicate leaders said their wooden boat is finished and they are proceeding with plans to compete.

--Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia syndicate, which finished first and third in the World Championships, apparently will not be affected by last week’s family ouster of syndicate head Raul Gardini as chairman of the Ferruzzi holding company, which controls his Montedison agri-chemical empire.