COMMENTARY : Spending Keeps Cup From Some : Sailing: Large sums of money needed to compete have shut many out of the running.

Is the America’s Cup in trouble?

Not unless you think something is wrong when half of the challengers’ fleet goes 0-48 against the other half.

Spain, Sweden and the two Australian teams weren’t in the same league with the Italians, French, Japanese and New Zealand. But who’s to tell Australia--a finalist in all seven finals since 1967--that it no longer belongs?

Sure, the challenger trials usually are lopsided. The Italians and even some Americans took their lumps at Fremantle five years ago. But this time it was as lopsided as the Persian Gulf War.

Do they want an arms race or a sailboat race?

Those are some of the hard questions to be addressed when principals meet at the Silver Gate Yacht Club on Shelter Island today. Challenger of Record Committee chairman Stan Reid and America’s Cup Organizing Committee general manager Tom Ehman are hosts. International America’s Cup Class chief measurer Ken McAlpine is chairman.

Skipper Peter Gilmour of Spirit of Australia will be there asking, “Do we want it to be a rich man’s sport, or do we want it to be like the Olympics?”

Team head Iain Murray will ask, “Do we limit the sport by money, boats or people? We see some teams with up to 200 people.”

Murray’s team had 32, including the 16 who sailed the boat.

America 3’s Bill Koch, who is spending more of his own money than anyone, has been advocating that carbon fiber and other exotic materials be banned to keep the costs down.

Of course, the Cup has always been a rich man’s sport. Thank God for Bill Koch. Without him, the whole burden of the defense would be on Dennis Conner, sailing in a vacuum.

But now it has become a corporate sport. The importance to his campaign of Conner’s upset victory against America 3 with the Cadillac boss aboard can’t be understated.

They’ll probably conclude that, no, it shouldn’t be like the Olympics, it should be somewhat exclusive, for only the world’s best sailors and with stakes high enough to command a commitment of time, money and technology.

The problem is, Gilmour said, that “it’s gotten to a level of escalation that nobody expected.”

And what about the spying? Bowsprits being blown all out of proportion? The paranoia? Can’t they give the public a peek?

Last week the questions were put to officials of the International Yacht Racing Union during their meetings in San Diego.

Peter Siemsen, vice president of the IYRU executive committee, said, “The pressure to win in the America’s Cup is absolutely brutal. . . . (to) lower the levels of the amount of money involved, probably . . . these problems will fade away.”

It might be worth a try.