America’s Cup Challengers Set Jan. 25 as Starting Date for Races

The 10 America’s Cup challengers--plus, perhaps, a new entry from Estonia--will start their trials here Jan. 25, they decided in a meeting Thursday at St. Tropez, France.

The round-robin series of match races--officially, the Louis Vuitton Cup--were scheduled Jan. 25-Feb. 5, Feb. 13-25 and March 8-19, with semifinals March 29-April 9 and a best-of-seven finals April 20-29.

It was announced earlier that the defense trials matching Team Dennis Conner against two boats from Bill Koch’s America-3 syndicate will run Jan. 14-26, Feb. 8-18, March 3-17 and March 28-April 12, followed by finals starting April 17 and continuing until one boat wins seven races.

The challenge and defense survivors will meet in the best-of-seven Cup match starting May 9.

The 10 challengers include syndicates from France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, Spain, Russia/Estonia, Yugoslavia/Croatia and two from Australia.

This week the lineup became confused when a second group claiming to represent the Red Star Syndicate emerged. The team--sponsored, it said, by the “Crazy Offshore Racing Club”--wrote the America’s Cup Organizing Committee that it, too, was building a carbon-fiber boat at Tallinn on the Baltic Sea.

Earlier, the other group had informed the ACOC that it now is sponsored by the “Russian Ocean Racing Club of St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad),” successor to the Ocean Racing Club of Leningrad that filed the original challenge.

Its boat is under construction at the Energia space plant near Moscow.

Both groups not only claim auspices of the Red Star Syndicate but that Doug Smith, a San Diego marine insurance broker, is their American representative. Smith is in St. Tropez for the challenger meetings and hoped a special meeting scheduled today with representatives of the Russian and Estonian groups would clarify the situation.

Meanwhile, it was determined that the Trustees’ Committee will meet Oct. 15 at the San Diego Marriott to resolve the dispute about when the challengers must have their boats in San Diego and “identified by measurement.”

The ACOC demands a Dec. 20 deadline. The challengers say anytime before the start of their trials should be OK. The richer syndicates would like more time for development, since the defenders can switch to new boats anytime before the final Cup match in May.

America’s Cup Notes

Reports are circulating that Dennis Conner will soon have funds to build a second boat. The plans are ready, and Eric Goetz, who built the first Stars & Stripes Cup-class boat in his Bristol, R.I., yard, says it would take 20 to 21 weeks to build another. That means Conner could have it by late March--ample time to switch. . . . Chris Dickson’s Nippon Challenge won two of three from France’s Marc Pajot in an organized match-race skirmish last weekend.

Sweden’s campaign is in trouble again. It’s reported that sponsors haven’t come through with commitments. A meeting is scheduled next week.

Dickson and Makoto Namba, the Nos. 1- and 9-rated match-racing skippers in the world, will race on separate boats in events in Bermuda and Japan over the next few weeks. In the Merit Cup for 12-meters in Japan a month ago, Namba watched as Dickson sailed with an afterguard of fellow New Zealanders. Suspicions are that Namba will be relegated to the role of trial-horse skipper when they return to San Diego and their third boat arrives in December. . . . Il Moro di Venezia’s Paul Cayard, New Zealand’s Rod Davis and Russell Coutts and Australia’s Peter Gilmour also will be on the match-racing circuit. Bill Koch, who needs that kind of practice, will have Harold Cudmore in for a crash-course seminar Nov. 1-7. The Irishman is a Cup veteran and former Congressional Cup winner. Meanwhile, America-3’s Buddy Melges and Dave Dellenbaugh will compete in the Columbus and Knickerbocker Cup events, respectively, this month.

Iain Murray’s one-boat campaign might become one of the most popular in San Diego. The syndicate will open the “Spirit of Australia Bar” when it moves into the Princess Resort next month. . . . Spain’s team is rising at 5:30 a.m. and sailing almost daily out of its new compound next to Conner. Its new boat is due around the end of the month, arriving on the same Aeroflot jumbo with Sweden’s entry . . . if Sweden comes.