The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — Sixteen years after he took the America’s Cup away from the United States, Russell Coutts will return to San Diego with his own regatta.
The RC 44 Championship Tour season opener will be sailed on San Diego Bay from March 2-6.
“It’s a great place to sail,” said Coutts, a four-time America’s Cup winner who has owned a home on Coronado, across the bay from downtown San Diego, since the 1990s.
The RC 44 is a high-performance, 44-foot sloop co-designed by Coutts. Fourteen teams of professional sailors, many of them associated with the America’s Cup, are expected to compete in San Diego.
Among them are the three top members of BMW Oracle Racing of San Francisco, which won the oldest trophy in international sports in February in Valencia, Spain, with a two-race sweep of Alinghi of Switzerland. The American syndicate spent 16 months testing its monster trimaran in San Diego prior to the 33rd America’s Cup.
Coutts, the syndicate’s CEO, and owner Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of Oracle Corp., will compete on the BMW Oracle Racing team. Skipper-helmsman Jimmy Spithill, who lives near Dennis Conner in Point Loma, said he’ll try to break away from preparations for the 34th America’s Cup to compete with his team, 17.
Spithill said the sailors are looking forward to returning to San Diego.
“Oh mate, it’s awesome,” the Australian said. “We’re all pretty excited because we spent a lot of time here. I honestly believe it’s one of the best harbors for sailing in the world. It’s just so picturesque with the downtown. There’s always a nice little sea breeze that kicks in afternoon, and there’s always a lot of action, with the aircraft carriers and the military helicopters. There’s always something going on. Also there’s the history of the Cup being here. Everyone knows it’s San Diego.”
San Diego held three America’s Cups, in 1988, 1992 and 1995, when Coutts skippered Team New Zealand to a five-race sweep of Conner. Coutts successfully defended the Cup with Team New Zealand in 2000 before leading Alinghi to victory over his countrymen in 2003.
BMW Oracle Racing made San Diego one of the first stops on its victory tour in February. It was in San Diego where the syndicate first used the radical wing sail that gave its trimaran a huge speed edge over the Swiss catamaran.
“It was pretty important because the wind conditions in San Diego are very consistent,” Coutts said. “You can plan your program out months in advance and know you’ll get reliable conditions.”
Although the America’s Cup is moving from sloops to 72-foot catamarans for the 2013 regatta, Coutts and Spithill said the RC 44, which includes match racing and fleet racing, is a top class for pro sailors.
“I think it’s the best racing monohull available, especially with the sailors involved,” Spithill said. “There are America’s Cup winners and world champions. When you win an event, you’re really the best all-around sailors, and the boats are probably the most enjoyable to sail.”
The RC 44 Championship Tour has been sailed since 2006 in Europe and Dubai. The first RC 44 regatta in the United States will be in Miami from Dec. 7-12.
The San Diego RC 44 regatta received $125,000 in seed money from the Tourism Marketing District. Sailor and businessman Troy Sears said the local organizing committee hopes to eventually stage an America’s Cup World Series regatta during the buildup to 2013.
“If we do a good job, it would represent to them that this is the place to be,” Sears said.
