SAILING / RICH ROBERTS : Koch Probably Doesn’t Let His Chauffeur Drive, Either

Does Bill Koch really intend to drive his own boat in the America’s Cup?

A joke around San Diego is that just in case anyone has other ideas, Koch has had America-3’s Jayhawk in the shed recently to remove one of the steering wheels.

America’s Cup boats are so wide--18 feet--that they have two steering wheels to enable the helmsman to steer from either side, but Koch’s problem is that just because he owns the boat, he thinks he should steer it himself.

At different times, Koch has had as many as five potential world-class helmsmen on the boat. He started with Gary Jobson and Buddy Melges, whose credentials are certified, along with the lesser-known but talented Bill Campbell.

He got Larry Klein, the Rolex yachtsman of the year, when he absorbed the Triumph America syndicate, which is why he didn’t use the widely experienced John Bertrand when Koch took over the Beach Boys team.

Later, Koch fired Klein. Insiders thought he really just wanted Klein’s designer, Heiner Meldner, anyway.

Then he hired John Kostecki, a 1988 Olympic silver medalist. Kostecki steered two downwind legs in the only race Jayhawk won in the International America’s Cup Class World Championships in May but spent all except two races on the slower backup boat.

After that, he figured he’d never get to drive much, so he quit and started planning another Olympic campaign.

Then Jobson, who put the crew together, became disenchanted and quit to go back to ESPN. Melges had back surgery and won’t be able to sail in next week’s match races against the French boat, Thursday through Saturday.

Bertrand, meanwhile, is no longer available, having joined Dennis Conner’s camp. Koch wants to speak with Peter Isler, who went to ESPN after folding his Cup campaign.

Isler said Jobson alerted him that he might leave Koch and seek to return to ESPN, but the move doesn’t alter Isler’s TV situation.

“The producers told me it wouldn’t change anything,” Isler said. “We’d just have three guys (with Jim Kelly) doing commentary. “That made me feel really good.”

So, it might take a princely offer to pry Isler out of the booth and back onto a boat, especially one as uncertain as Koch’s.

For the moment, that leaves Koch, Campbell and some untapped possibilities such as Cam Lewis, who has been a mainsheet trimmer for America-3.

This may be the worst of both worlds. With all the trouble and expense, nobody in his right mind should own a sailboat, even if he is two-thirds a billionaire. Just know somebody who does, so you can sail on his boat.

And there is the question of Koch’s ability to match-race with world-class sailors, something he has never done. Does Roger Penske insist on driving his own cars at Indy?

Who knows what to make of the strange case of A.A. (Al) Constantine, who wants to defend the America’s Cup?

The Connecticut yacht broker showed up in San Diego last week and was rebuffed by the San Diego Yacht Club’s Defense Committee.

This is the committee charged with mounting a successful defense, having weeded out several prospects on the basis of their credit lines, while approving four local bids, three of which folded--the exception being Dennis Conner.

Constantine, who calls his syndicate the Independence Group, has resurfaced from 1988, when his name flashed across the Cup horizon briefly after New Zealand’s Michael Fay challenged San Diego with his subcompact aircraft carrier. Constantine offered to build a boat to beat Fay’s but was politely refused.

San Diego preferred sailing a lock with the catamaran and getting on to the glorious, multinational defense that was written on the wind at Fremantle, Australia.

Now the Defense Committee says Constantine’s credentials are lacking.

“He didn’t offer much,” said Gene Trepte, the lawyer who is chairman of the committee.

Constantine said he showed them commitments of $6 million and told them he had a design ready to go into construction.

Not enough, said the committee.

Why not just let anybody sail who shows up?

“If anybody shows up at the defense trials with a legal (America’s Cup) boat, they would be allowed to race,” said Tom Ehman, general manager of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee. “(But) the chances of that are zero.”

Why? Because it’s rigged that way. Along with the blessing of the Defense Committee, which is an arm of the ACOC, comes use of the licensed America’s Cup name and logo for fund raising. So, while a prospect would have trouble raising money without those rights, he first has to show he has money.

Catch 22?

If Constantine can do without the window dressing, he’s welcome to race. But Ehman said: “We don’t want any weak candidates.”

Said Constantine: “I think it’s their concern that we might upstage everyone. We understand you have a lot of politics here, but squeezing out the competition is not the answer.”

MATCH RACING--San Diego’s Peter Isler, ranked sixth internationally and the top U.S. competitor, never won on the World Match-Racing circuit until last week’s Liberty Cup at New York. He beat France’s Bertrand Pace, 2-0, in the finals. Isler was 8-1 in the round-robin, followed by Pace and England’s Chris Law, each 7-2; Japan’s Makoto Namba, 6-3; J.J. Isler (Peter’s wife) and America’s Kevin Mahaney, each 4-5; Denmark’s Valdemar Bandolowski and Australia’s Bobby Wilmot, each 3-6; Italy’s Tommaso Chieffi, 2-7, and Spain’s Pedro Campos, 1-8.

OLYMPICS--The Tornado catamaran Nationals out of Alamitos Bay Yacht Club last week heated up the competition between Long Beach wife-husband Pease and Jay Glaser and Pete Melvin with crew Chris Steinfeld for the 1992 Olympic berth. Melvin, an ’88 Olympic sailor, won four of seven races for the title, while the Glasers won two races for second place. Both teams will compete in the Olympic practice regatta at Barcelona, Spain, July 23-Aug. 7. Randy Smyth, ’84 Olympic silver medalist, is trying to crank up another campaign. Smyth sold his sail loft and moved from Huntington Beach to Florida last year.

NOTEWORTHY--The Alamitos Bay Yacht Club is conducting junior sailing lesson for ages 5 and up at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Details: (714) 891-2381 or (213) 434-9955. . . . William W. Slater, described as the “boy wonder” of sailing in The Times at the age of 16 and a sailor for 58 years, died of cancer. He was 74. He was an older brother of Peggy Slater, also a well-known sailor and yacht broker who died last year. . . . Sailing Lasers, Peter Wells of La Canada and crew Andy Zinn of Rancho Palos Verdes finished second in the doublehanded division of the USYRU/Nautica Youth Sailing Championships at Milwaukee. They will go on to the IYRU World Youth Sailing Championships at Largs, Scotland Aug. 6-16. . . . Promoter Bruce Golison’s Audi/North Sails Race Week system of alternative penalties and arbitration seems to work. With 134 boats competing in four races over three days, there were only four protest hearings. Fourteen boats whose skippers thought they might have committed fouls took 20% penalties on the course, while 30 others accepted 40% penalties from the arbitrator rather than risk disqualification in a hearing.

EVENTS--The Redondo Beach YC and Shoreline YC will run the Queen Mary Regatta for PHRF classes on July 13 from King Harbor to Long Beach. Details: (213) 376-2298. . . . The Ullman Sails/PHRF of Southern California Championship Regatta is scheduled for Aug. 10-11 out of Long Beach YC. Details: (213) 438-6712.