Limit America’s Cup Teams to Two Boats

Syndicates from Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and Spain have challenged for the 1995 America’s Cup, as the Nov. 12 deadline nears.

Detect anyone missing?

New Zealand’s Sir Michael Fay still hasn’t announced his intentions, but there’s no doubt that the Kiwis are coming back. They have participated in meetings among prospective challengers to frame cost-cutting proposals for ’95.

But the San Diego Yacht Club should agree that the defenders will play under the same rules as the challengers, without giving the home team the advantage of allowing Bill Koch--or Dennis Conner, if he has money next time--to keep building boats up to the final match.

If they decide to be fair and sensible, they will impose a two-boat limit, with the last boat to be declared well before racing starts.

But then, who ever said the America’s Cup was fair? Or sensible?

Top-ranked Chris Dickson’s last words after the Mazda World Championship of Match Racing at Long Beach in August were that he wasn’t going to Rovinj, Croatia, to compete in the next event on the circuit.

“There’s a war going on in Yugoslavia,” he said. “I don’t go to wars.”

Dickson changed his mind and won the ACY Cup by beating world champion Russell Coutts, 2-0, in an all-New Zealand final.

The Star world regatta at San Francisco supports the contention that it’s easier to win the Olympics than a world title in that most competitive class.

Mark Reynolds of San Diego and crew Hal Haenel of Los Angeles, second and first in the last two Olympics, were running only sixth in the event through Thursday, with American boats holding five of the first six positions, topped by the Joe Londrigan-Phil Trinter team.

Earlier this year, Reynolds and Haenel placed only third in the San Diego fleet regatta.

A country may send only one boat to the Olympics in each class. Reynolds and Haenel have never won a world title, but they have won two U.S. Olympic trials to open the door for silver and gold medals, which they wouldn’t trade for a Star world championship, anyway.

Sailing Notes

SHOWTIME--The BOAT/U.S. booth at the Long Beach Boat Show next Wednesday through Sunday will feature a drawing for two for a trip to New York to go sailing with Dennis Conner aboard his new 60-foot Whitbread Round-the-World Race boat before the race starts Sept. 25, 1993. Conner’s boat is named Winston, for the tobacco company. Tobacco sponsors were banned in this year’s America’s Cup at San Diego but are a major part of Whitbread support. . . . Add Whitbread: Besides Conner, another round-the-world convert is Chris Dickson, who will skipper a New Zealand boat with Japanese sponsorship. . . . Another new 60, Yamaha, lost its mast while sailing from Hawaii to Japan with a New Zealand crew.

OFFSHORE--A Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) class has been added to the 37th biennial Transpac--Point Fermin to Honolulu--next July. It will tax the computers, that should make everyone happy, because the race already has International Offshore Rule (IOR) and International Measurement System (IMS) handicap divisions. . . . The ULDB 70 class may be a little short with seven to nine boats for L.A. Yacht Club’s 17th biennial race to Cabo San Lucas starting Nov. 6-7. Roy Disney’s Pyewacket and Antonio Elias’ Ole have been in Europe, and Peter Tong’s Blondie has been back in Bill Lee’s yard at Santa Cruz for repairs after being bashed by an out-of-control Maverick in the Big Boat Series at San Francisco. There also will be about seven 50-footers, but the entire fleet probably won’t number more than 25, a reflection of the recession. Organizers have cut the race to 802 nautical miles by eliminating Guadalupe Island as a mark.

NOTEWORTHY--Charlie Walker of King Harbor YC and Richard Satchell of Navy YC received US Sailing’s gold Rescue Medals at the Southern California Yachting Assn.’s old-timers’ night. They saved fellow sailors in life-threatening offshore incidents in the last year. . . . Tillotson-Pearson of Warren, R.I., is scheduled to turn out its 5,000th J-24 Oct. 21. First built in 1977, the J-24 has become one of the most popular one-design racers in the world.