Cup Challengers Win on Deadline Decision : Sailing: Trustees’ ruling gives syndicates an extra month to prepare boats.

The America’s Cup challengers, rich and poor, got a boost Wednesday when the Trustees’ Committee ruled that foreign boats wouldn’t have to be in San Diego until Jan. 24--not Dec. 20 as dictated by the America’s Cup Organizing Committee.

The decision was rendered by the three-man committee established in 1988 to settle Cup disputes without going to court. All principals agreed to abide by the committee’s decisions.

This one means that the wealthier syndicates, such as Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia, New Zealand and Nippon Challenge, will have more time to build and develop newer boats.

That would strengthen the perceived edge the challengers already have over the only two defense syndicates: Team Dennis Conner and Bill Koch’s America-3. But the ultimate defender doesn’t have to present his boat until the day of the first race against the surviving challenger May 9.

The decision also might avert some dropouts who wouldn’t have been able to meet the Dec. 20 deadline for measurement and inspection. It might make the difference for struggling syndicates from Yugoslavia, Sweden and Russia--and perhaps a late entry from newly independent Estonia.

The Trustees’ Committee for this issue was composed of the commodores from the last three yacht clubs to hold the Cup--Sandy Purdon of San Diego, Phil Mostyn of Royal Perth and Dyer Jones of New York.

The voting was not revealed, but it’s presumed that Mostyn and Jones voted for the extension, and it’s possible that Purdon did, too. He indicated earlier he felt there was no reason to demand that the challengers have their boats in San Diego a month before their trials were to start, since everyone is sailing basically the same kind of boat--that is, nobody is going to show up with a catamaran.

The Dec. 20 date was more the demand of Tom Ehman, the ACOC’s executive vice president/general manager.

Ehman said Wednesday, “We respect the trustees’ ruling and will abide by it.”

The trustees’ ruling read in part: “. . . by agreeing to the International America’s Cup Class more than 10 months before the match, the parties have satisfied the intent of paragraph six of the Deed of Gift.”

The Deed of Gift, written in 1887 to govern Cup competition, calls for a challenger to declare the dimensions of his boat 10 months before the final Cup match against the defender.

But because everybody will be sailing an IACC boat, the trustees said, “the defending club knows the type of vessel representing each challenger and her limiting dimensions. . . . There is no compelling reason that a challenger must identify its yacht of the International America’s Cup Class prior to the beginning of the challenger selection series.”

The trustees ruled that each challenging syndicate must identify its boat by 5 p.m. on Jan. 24, the day before the challenger selection series--also known as the Louis Vuitton Cup--begins. Once they’ve identified their boats, challengers cannot substitute them throughout the trials or finals.

The defender trials begin Jan. 14.

The trustees’ meeting was convened at the request of the Challenger of Record Committee, which represents the 10 or 11 challengers from nine or 10 countries--again, depending on the status of Estonia.

Challengers were pleased for the principle of the decision as well as the preparation time they gained.

“I think that if you look at the negative rather than the positive, it would have been difficult for some of the challengers to evaluate the newest boats before having them named,” said Stan Reid, chairman of the CORC.

“I don’t think the issue is all that big. But it’s nice to have decision come down on our side.”

Reid pointed out that the decision actually buys challengers only about three weeks of additional preparation time because the boats must be measured and certified.

“It really isn’t a huge matter,” said Jerry La Dow, executive director of Team Dennis Conner. “The advantage to them is that it gives them more time to trial-horse their latest generation boats to find out which is best before they declare them.”

Conner is still trying to raise money for a second boat. Koch has two boats and expects a third.

Il Moro di Venezia, on the other hand, is expected to have its fifth boat in San Diego by mid-January.

“This is very good for the fairness of the America’s Cup,” said Stefano Roberti, spokesman for Il Moro. “I think the decision showed that the challengers were right, especially considering that on the Trustees Committee we have one voting member who’s supporting the San Diego Yacht Club and the ACOC. We hope the ACOC won’t raise such obnoxious questions like these another time.”

Peter Blake, manager of the New Zealand syndicate, said the ruling won’t alter his team’s schedule, which would have had the fourth and final Kiwi boat in San Diego by Dec. 20, anyway. But it could help keep some secrets longer.

“I think it’s common sense,” Blake said. “This is a step to make it a little bit fairer. For (the defenders) to have an extra five weeks to check out what everyone has and perhaps copy it . . . it means we can keep aspects of our boat to ourselves.”

Purdon said the trustees met for 14 hours Tuesday and Wednesday.

He said he couldn’t comment on the discussions or the voting, but said, “The process is working very well. Every decision that we’ve taken to this date has been done with a lot of hard work and looking at all the documents from the Deed of Gift on forward. It’s probably at least established a foundation for the future that I think is very important.”