Italy, New Zealand Survive for Another Round

And then there were two.

With the commencement of the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals Thursday, only Italy and New Zealand remain in the chase for the America’s Cup. For Japan and France, the once-ruckus waters off Point Loma become a memory.

“It’s always sad to see those who don’t make the grade and have to depart with the message, ‘Thank you for your participation, but don’t come back on Monday,’ ” Stan Reid, chairman of the Challengers of Record Committee, said at the close of the round robin. “You can’t have winners without having losers.”

Yet Nippon Challenge and Ville de Paris participants haven’t the time to feel sorry for themselves. They leave San Diego with as much anticipation and expectation--and loads more experience--as they had when they arrived.

The day the Japanese and the French were eliminated, they already were planning to contest the next America’s Cup. Nippon Challenge ’92 makes way for Nippon Challenge ‘95, and Ville de Paris simply begins where it left off.

“We decided today to come back to the America’s Cup,” Yvon Jacob, president of Le Defi Francais and syndicate head said Thursday. “Ville de Paris and Group Legris decided to restart. Now we have three years to get ready.

“The America’s Cup has become very popular in France the last three months, and I don’t think we’ll have any problems raising the money we need . . . Especially with the new status. It’s a challenge of French technology, French industry.”

And the French expect to return with the best they can offer in sailing prowess. Jacob said Marc Pajot, who led Ville de Paris to a third-place finish in the challenger trials, will remain their skipper.

“There is no reason to change,” Jacob said. “We think Marc is the right man in France to keep the challenge going in the right direction.”

Some members of the French team will stay in San Diego another three or four weeks to test their new keel, an appendage they had hoped to use in the finals, then will return to Sete, their training camp on the French Riviera. By September, Ville de Paris should be fully operational.

The Japanese, fourth-place finishers, are on a similar timetable. Emili Miura, press officer for Nippon Challenge, spoke on behalf of syndicate head Tatsumitsu Yamasaki when she said the 1995 challenge expects to take a few months off, then have some long-term plans mapped out by November.

Most of Team Nippon will leave San Diego in the next 10 to 12 days.

“It is a little sad,” Miura said. “But most of our team hasn’t seen their families for more than a year. They have a good reason to go back. Some I think, will come back with their families for the finals.”

Besides, Japan intends to see this endeavor through.

“Mr. Yamasaki wants to finish this idea he started,” Miura said. “You will be seeing us again.”

Whether skipper Chris Dickson will sail again with the Japanese isn’t so certain. Dickson’s contract, as did all those of all Nippon team members, ended with the final race. Both sides said it’s too soon to speculate what the future holds.

The Japanese have emphasized all along that Nippon wouldn’t have gotten nearly this far without Dickson, who plans to stay in San Diego before he returns to Japan and eventually his native New Zealand. Dickson was noncommittal about the next Cup.

“It’s too far away,” Dickson said. “I’m not going to devote my life to trying to win the America’s Cup unless it’s with a team where it’s completely possible.”

It wasn’t enough to take a group made up primarily of neophytes to the semifinals. Dickson wanted it all.

“To leave without winning, of course it’s depressing,” he said. “Sure we came a long way, but that’s not why I came.”

Now that Nippon has the benefit of a bulk of imported knowledge and experience, will the syndicate opt for an all-Japanese crew?

Hard to say.

“The one thing we can say is, these (current Nippon) sailors that have experienced the America’s Cup are way ahead of the sailors in Japan, and maybe ahead of some of the world-class sailors who have not experienced the America’s Cup,” Miura said. “With all the forces combined, I’m sure we can be a big part of the next Cup.”