America S Cup

Good morning -- Sailing racers -- You might be staging great races, but with no U.S. boat, Americans aren't watching the America's Cup.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Three-time America's Cup winner Harold S. "Mike" Vanderbilt used to say that if you had to ask how much the America's Cup costs, you couldn't afford it.Although Italian fashion king Patrizio Bertelli apparently could afford it, he asked the question anyway.And when renowned yacht designer German Frers told him that he would get no change out of $50 million, Bertelli, one of the richest men in Europe, said he would "consult his board."Then with a smile he confided that the "board" meant his wife and business partner, Miuccia Prada.

Young America, the New York Yacht Club's challenge team in the America's Cup, will be allowed to complete the challenger elimination series' Round Robin 2 in USA-58, the team's second and newer boat.The International Jury for the Louis Vuitton Cup approved Young America's application yesterday after determining USA-53, the team's first boat, was damaged too extensively to continue in the round.In yesterday's racing, Stars and Stripes defeated first-round leader Prada by 1 minute, 51 seconds, America True beat Le Defi Francais by 59 seconds and AmericaOne defeated Nippon by default.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Long before the 11 contenders from seven nations came to Auckland for the 30th challenge for the America's Cup, the competitors agreed not to fraternize with the enemy -- New Zealand.The informal pact decreed there would be no pre-Cup hookups and therefore no window of opportunity for the defenders to see how likely they were to retain yachting's holy grail.But if Sir Peter Blake, the CEO of Cup defender Team New Zealand, is right, all that is about to change."We would love to sail against some of the challengers, and we will," Sir Peter said.

In a month, the fine, multimillion-dollar madness that is the challenge for the America's Cup begins in the waters off Auckland, New Zealand, and about five months later one of perhaps a dozen teams will walk off with an ugly Victorian ewer and bragging rights for the next four years.The Louis Vuitton Cup, a series of three round-robins, semifinals and final, will determine which of 13 challengers still officially in the hunt gets to race against Team New Zealand in the America's Cup series beginning Feb. 19."

The Baltimore Waterfront Festival will open today, and feature an oyster-slurping contest, Cajun zydeco music, a 30-foot girdle and a bicycle-powered dragon racing a beaver through the streets of downtown Baltimore.More than 100,000 people are expected to pack the Inner Harbor through Sunday to feast on crab cakes, Caribbean jerk chicken, gyros and dozens of other foods.Among those not gorging themselves are 11 sailors with an Annapolis team competing in a series of races near Fort McHenry that begin today and will offer a preview of some of the best skippers in next year's America's Cup.The Prime Outlets crew was jogging yesterday around Fells Point wearing foul weather gear and thermal jackets in the hot sun in an attempt to lose 60 pounds so they could qualify for the first Chesapeake Grand Prix race.

Young Australia, the crew with the youngest skipper and the oldest boat in the Louis Vuitton Cup, might be more of a force soon in the challengers' elimination series for the America's Cup.The Australian team from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron has made a deal to acquire oneAustralia from AmericaOne, Paul Cayard's challenge team from San Francisco.OneAustralia (AUS-31) was the only boat to beat Team New Zealand in the America's Cup trials off San Diego in 1995 and was generally accepted as that year's second-fastest boat among challenge and defense teams.

Young America, the New York Yacht Club's $40 million challenge team for the America's Cup, said yesterday it intends to continue in Round Robin 2 of the challenger trials despite nearly sinking one of its $4 million boats on Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, New Zealand.The team planned to apply today to the International Jury for a measurement certificate for its second and newer boat (USA-58) and expects to be sailing by Friday, said Young America spokesman Jane Eagleson.The substitution would be allowed under regatta rules if it is determined the team's damaged racer cannot be repaired sufficiently to compete.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Most sailors know the America's Cup has a hole in the bottom. And the hopes and dreams of half a fleet of challengers to New Zealand's hold on the cup just went flowing through that hole.Of the 11 challenger syndicates, gone are the Australians, Spanish, Swiss and Americans from the Waikiki Yacht Club. Underfunded and outclassed from the start, they were never seriously in contention.The major surprise of the competition, however, is the impending departure of the New York Yacht Club's entry, Young America.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Some of America's most talented sailors are on the beach in Auckland today, but not for long.Having been eliminated from the America's Cup challenger semifinals, Chris Larson, the Annapolis-based helmsman of the Waikiki Yacht Club's Abracadabra syndicate and winner of sailing's prestigious Rolex Yachtsman of the Year award for 1997, is expected to be snapped up by one of the remaining three U.S. syndicates, most likely St. Francis...

More than 1,100 sailors from around the world are in Annapolis for a three-day regatta that will decide local and regional bragging rights for 21 classes and serve as the tuneup for the J/24 world championships next weekend. The National Offshore One Design regatta, which begins Friday and takes place at the mouth of the Severn River and in the Chesapeake Bay, traditionally draws the largest number of competitors in the nine-event series that stretches from coast to coast. This year, 265 boats have been entered, with more expected before racing begins.

A Who's Who of competitive sailing will face off tomorrow and Saturday at the Inner Harbor for the renewal of the Senator's Cup. The regatta, which will be visible from the lawn at Fort McHenry, will feature six skippers - all of them America's Cup veterans - in one-on-one match racing in 35-foot sailboats. "Spectators will be able to see the sailing qualities and intensity of America's Cup action right from the shoreline. The races will be quick and closely fought," said John A. Pica Jr., a former state senator and founder of the event.

Good morning -- Sailing racers -- You might be staging great races, but with no U.S. boat, Americans aren't watching the America's Cup.

There is video footage taken when oneAustralia cracked apart and sank during the America's Cup race in 1995. There are national awards presented yearly to top sailors at fancy banquets. There is even a machine that simulates the experience of sailing - without the user ever getting in the water. The sport of sailing has no shortage of drama, history or gadgetry, but until yesterday when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced that a Sailing Hall of Fame would be established in Annapolis, the sport had no single place to tell its full story.

"America's Sailing Capital," that would be Annapolis, right? Annapolis, as in the home of the Naval Academy, as in the only North American stopover on the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race, as in the home of author and broadcaster Gary Jobson, yacht designer Bruce Farr and more regattas than you can shake a spinnaker at. It says so right on the hand-carved, gold-leaf sign right at the Spa Creek bridge. No less than a city council proclamation in 1995 backs up the claim with legislative might. "If anybody can deny us this title, let them come forward or forever hold their peace," declared then-Mayor Al Hopkins after the vote.

ATHENS - Gary Jobson has a bad comb-over. And that's a good thing. Sixteen months after a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the Annapolis man known as sailing's greatest ambassador is back, providing commentary of the Olympic regatta for NBC. "I had scans just before I came over, and I'm clean. My stamina's getting better. I'm skinny, but I just about have enough hair to comb over," he said, laughing. Jobson is producing and hosting a 30-minute nightly Olympics sailing program for NBC, which is being broadcast at midnight on the Bravo network.

Gary Jobson's ship has come in. The Annapolis yachtsman, author and television commentator will be honored for his tireless promotion of sailing when he is inducted Oct. 16 into the America's Cup Hall of Fame. The selection of Jobson and Australian Alan Bond - both America's Cup winners - was announced yesterday by the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, R.I. They will join the 53-member Hall, which includes Dennis Conner, Russell Coutts, Ted Turner and the late Sir Peter Blake. "It's a huge honor," said Jobson, 52. "When I look at the list of members, I feel quite humble.

Gary Jobson is having a "good day," his first really good day in a long time. The sailing celebrity - America's Cup winner, ESPN commentator and producer - walks swiftly around downtown Annapolis on an afternoon as bright and sunny as his mood. He talks eagerly about the book he's writing about racing. And, he jokes about his thin, wispy tufts of white hair, telling a guest he's sporting "the hatched-chicken look," the result of chemotherapy. For the last few months, the sailing world has been without its mainstay as Jobson, one of the nation's most recognizable sailors, has canceled appearances around the country for the first time in years.

For more than a decade, Gary Jobson has crisscrossed the country raising money for research to find a cure for leukemia and lymphoma. Now, the television voice of the America's Cup and soul of the Maryland sailing community is being treated for lymphoma. Jobson, 52, learned he had the disease last week and began an aggressive six-month regimen of chemotherapy treatments last Friday. "It was a rough weekend, but he's feeling better," his secretary, Kathy Lambert, said yesterday. "His spirits are up."

The Inner Harbor was alive with the sounds of drum beats, jazz music and laughing children at the sixth annual Baltimore Waterfront Festival, a four-day event celebrating the Chesapeake Bay that ended yesterday on a sunny note after Saturday's dreary rain. Among yesterday's highlights was the America's Cup 12-Meter Regatta match-up between yachts Courageous and Freedom, two America's Cup winners from Newport, R.I. Each yacht won one of two 35-minute races in the Patapsco River near Fort McHenry.