SAILING / RICH ROBERTS : Koch Is Trying to Stem Flow of Technology
Old pals Paul Cayard, formerly of San Francisco, and Rod Davis, who grew up in Coronado, will be sailing their second America’s Cups for foreign entries in 1995.
Jim Reichel and Jim Pugh, the San Diegans who helped design Bill Koch’s America 3 winner in ‘92, will join Australia’s Iain Murray as principal designers for the boat Davis will sail for Australia, and other members of Koch’s team will work for New Zealand and Australia.
Enough, says Koch, whose boat turned back Cayard’s Il Moro di Venezia in defending the Cup a year ago. He has had it with Americans defecting abroad to help somebody take the Cup away from the United States. He didn’t spend $67 million to let that happen.
Koch has refused foreign offers for the technology for America 3 or the boat itself, which is stored in a warehouse in Reno.
“When I said no to them, they tried to hire my people,” Koch said from Wichita, Kan. He stopped that by re-signing the two leaders of his ’92 braintrust, Vince Moeyersoms and Jerry Milgram, to development projects to keep them from going to France. Dennis Conner also inquired, but Koch turned him down, too.
“I did tie up the essence of our technology and our next generation of designs,” Koch said. “I don’t want any foreigner to get it, and if I decide to do it myself again, I want to have it. If I decide to help another syndicate, I want to have it available.”
The problem is that there are precious few opportunities for Americans to participate in an America’s Cup for America. There were only two defense candidates in ‘92--Koch and Conner--and there are only two for ‘95--Conner and the Kevin Mahaney-John Marshall PACT 95 team.
Koch proposed to make the event more attractive to other U.S. cities by allowing them to buy the venue rights from San Diego for $2 million if a boat from their city were to win. Koch’s market studies have indicated that would boost national interest and sponsorship tremendously and thus strengthen the defense.
But the San Diego Yacht Club has a stranglehold on the event, which continues to gasp for support.
San Diego’s attitude, Koch says, “is drastically hurting the Cup.”
Unfortunately, when he laid his proposals before the club membership a few weeks ago, he also spent a few minutes complaining--again--about how he had been treated as an interloper on Conner’s turf.
“I wasn’t very tactful,” Koch said. “I’m too blunt. I should never be a politician.”
But Koch said in the year since his triumph he and Conner have “become very friendly. We were very respectful a year ago. Now it’s an affection.”
Koch said that when he had Conner to dinner in Florida recently, he pulled a wine cabinet down on his head--shades of the day he got conked on America 3.
“I woke up in the hospital at 3 a.m.,” Koch said.
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Without Koch’s help, Conner hopes to balance America’s sailing brain drain a bit. He has re-signed designer Dave Pedrick to work on his next America’s Cup boat and is talking to New Zealand native Bruce Farr. Farr already has designed Conner’s Whitbread Round-the-World boat, which was launched in Venice last month and is en route to New York.
Farr, of Annapolis, Md., has designed New Zealand’s last three America’s Cup boats, including the innovative fiberglass KZ-7 in ‘86-87 that Conner implied was cheating and the ’88 monster that Conner dispatched with a mere catamaran.
Sailing Notes
EVENTS--Long Beach YC’s annual Race Week today through Sunday will include handicap classes for IOR and IMS boats, as well as one-design classes for 50s, Schock 35 and J/35s. . . . Many of the same boats will return June 25-27 for the ninth annual Trimble Navigation-North Sails Race Week. Bruce Golison’s event has added a new class for big boats up to 60 feet. . . . The ’93 Sail Bear charity regatta at Big Bear Lake will feature one-design dinghy racing for Lido 14, Capril 14.2, Coronado 15, Snipe, Thistle and Lightning.
AMERICA’S CUP--San Diego’s organizers hailed the recent defender-challenger agreements as “a new spirit of sportsmanship . . . (and) a fair test of sailing and design abilities” that will help “create an atmosphere whereby the focus . . . will be on sailing.” Comment: Why are they trying to change the whole thing after 142 years? The agreements outlaw spying, including the use of helicopters, electronics, underwater means, tracking boats and going through somebody else’s trash. Sails are limited to 15 on board in the first round of trials. There also will be a simple windward-leeward, three-lap, 18.5-mile race course for ‘95, instead of one with the pointless Z-leg used in ’92.
OLYMPICS--International Yacht Racing Union President Peter Tallberg has proposed that the organization’s name be changed to “World Sailing,” following the lead of US Sailing, formerly the U.S. Yacht Racing Union, and a proposal that “Olympic Yachting” be changed to “Olympic Sailing.” Good idea. Few modern racing sailboats and none of the little Olympic boats are “yachts” by connotation. US Sailing also proposes a new lineup of classes for the 2000 Olympics that would exclude the Star class. Bad idea. The Stars are the oldest, strongest and most prestigious one-design class in the world.
OFFSHORE--Despite Aldora’s success in the recent Newport-Ensenada race, owner-skipper Dave Dillehay says that, although the Long Beach boat has an IMS handicap rating as a combination racer-cruiser, it’s “more of a cruiser than a racer.” That’s rubbing saltwater in the wounds of the ULDB 70s that his smaller Andrews 56 embarrassed. Aldora was faster down the course--by 2 minutes 42 seconds--than Mike Campbell’s Andrews 70 Victoria, which finished first but started 10 minutes earlier. Both boats were designed by Alan Andrews of Long Beach, but the rules allow Aldora comforts that ULDB 70 sled crews only dream about. The 70s are all-out racers under their IOR handicaps. Aldora’s IMS rating allows for amenities, such as two staterooms, two heads, three showers, a full-size refrigerator, a microwave, a watermaker, TV (with VCR) and “every creature comfort possible,” Dillehay said.
The 37th biennial Transpac, starting June 30-July 3 off Point Fermin, will have 42 boats, its fewest since 32 in 1963. It would be even smaller if the Transpacific Yacht Club hadn’t added a Performance Handicap Racing Fleet division this year, drawing 12-14 entries of boats that otherwise seldom race out of sight of shore. However, that class also includes Merlin, the original Bill Lee-built sled that still holds the record of 8 days 11 hours 1 minute 46 seconds set in 1977. The four-day staggered start will work back from the smaller boats to the largest.
Victories in the ULDB 70s’ last two events have left John DeLaura’s Silver Bullet atop the season standings with 45 points, four more than runner-up Brack Duker’s Evolution, which was second in the Spring Sled Regatta at Cabrillo Beach and last weekend’s Cal Cup at Marina del Rey.
TEMPEST IN TEAPOT--The Balboa Yacht Club has won the Lipton Cup the last two years, but Southern California’s oldest sailing trophy remains in possession of the San Diego Yacht Club. The Cup, established by tea king Sir Thomas Lipton in the early part of the century, was traditionally a floating trophy awarded to the winner, who would host the next event. But when San Diego won it two years ago it re-wrote Sir Thomas’ Deed of Gift to take permanent possession. Does this sound familiar? Balboa YC can’t do anything about the America’s Cup but has asked that the Lipton deed be returned to its original form.
NOTEWORTHY--Newport Harbor High School won the Baker Trophy for the national team sailing championship at St. Mary’s College in Maryland. The team, coached by Bill Wakeman and Jamie Malm, sailed three boats to a 15-2 record and qualified for an international regatta in England in July. Skippers were Danny Zimbaldi, Steve Kleha and Nathan Dunham; crew Mandy McDonnell, Kasey Hogan and Courteney Polivina; alternate Jack Hogan. Bishop High of Point Loma was third among 12 schools. . . . Coach Mike Segerblom and the USC sailing team took several boatloads of inner-city children sailing on boats borrowed from members of the L.A. Yacht Club.
