Sailing / Rich Roberts : There’s More to Ensenada Than a Party

Lorin Weiss has been associated with the Newport-Ensenada International Yacht Race race since 1952--almost from the beginning.

But he has never seen it because he has always been in the middle of it--”racing or on the committee,” he said.

Weiss is general chairman of the 42nd event this year, and he marvels at how it has changed in becoming the world’s largest international sailboat race.

“In ‘52, you could get a complete lobster dinner in Ensenada for $2, and a bottle of tequila was 50 cents,” he recalled.

That’s the general attitude about the Ensenada, that it’s a party race, and there’s no denying that winning, though serious to some, is secondary to many of the between 600 to 700 entries.

But Weiss and Doug Wall, president of the Newport Ocean Sailing Assn. that runs the race, say there also is a serious side more important than a victory. When all those boats set sail southward at noon April 28, three 18-wheelers will be rolling down Interstate 5 toward the border loaded with hospital beds, dental chairs, clothes and other items needed by the people whose town is invaded by the sailors on the last weekend of April every year.

The program, “Hands Across the Border,” started 11 years ago after devastating floods hit Baja California border towns shortly before the ’78 race. Never was the diversity of the two cities linked by the race so evident.

A year ago Ensenada Mayor Ernesto Ruffo Appel mentioned to Newport Beach Mayor John Cox that the city had built a new firehouse but couldn’t afford a fire truck.

By coincidence, Newport Beach was about to surplus out an old truck, which Cox offered to Appel. The truck also benefitted a nearby cement plant, which with the added fire protection was able to satisfy insurance requirements and expand its operation and create jobs.

Volunteers said as they unloaded their 18-wheeler at the military hospital last year they could see patients being moved off the floor into the new beds.

Again this year, a truck will be parked at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, 1601 Bayside Drive, Corona Del Mar, from April 19 until the day of the race to collect donations for Mexican orphans. They need such items as clothing, bedding, towels, furniture, kitchen supplies and appliances, household items and toys.

This year the Ensenada race has added another public service. Each boat will fly a burgee stating, “Drug Use is Life Abuse.”

Ted Allison, 42, a dropout yacht broker from Seattle, has a passion for sailing.

“I love being at sea, I love being on a boat, I love to travel,” he said.

He has picked the right event: The fifth Whitbread Round the World Race that starts from Southampton, England, Sept. 2 for a 10-month, 32,943-mile circumnavigation of the globe.

Allison, who plans to have a crew of 10, is one of only two American skippers among the 37 entries. The other is Nance Frank of Newport, R.I., who plans to sail with an all-female crew.

Allison has crewed in three previous Whitbreads, placing second twice and ninth.

He thinks it will cost about $2 million, a bare-bone budget compared to some rivals who are investing up to $6 million. Allison is counting on collecting some sponsors.

“The closer you get to race day, the easier it is to sell,” he said. “But you need it at the front end.”

Allison is having a Santa Cruz 70 built by Bill Lee, the first to produce the ultra light-displacement boats (ULDBs) in significant numbers. These boats dominate off-wind, one-way races such as the Ensenada or Transpac, but Allison thinks they would also be practical for the Whitbread.

“It’s the only one like it in the race,” he said. “But it’s basically a downwind race. We figure only 12% will be upwind in heavy conditions . . . the worst part north of Cape Horn.

“It will require seamanship not to break the boat, but it’s an incredibly fast vehicle.”

Pending the outcome of the San Diego Yacht Club’s appeal on forfeiting the Cup to New Zealand, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee--$3 million in debt--has laid off seven employees, including executive vice president Tom Ehman and public relations director Tom Mitchell.

Only a secretary to answer the phone and an accountant to open the mail remain. Mitchell said the layoff was “Plan C” among three decisions New York Supreme Court Justice Carmen Ciparick could have made: San Diego’s catamaran was OK, the cat wasn’t OK but the defense would be re-sailed, or New Zealand gets the Cup.

The ACOC says it owes $4 million and has $1 million in assets. San Diego banker Malin Burnham, who heads the ACOC as he did Sail America, has guaranteed the debts.

San Pedro’s Steve Dair, who with his brother Brian planned to sail the ill-fated “Wingmill” against the Australian defenders at Melbourne in January, says plans are afoot to start a new campaign this summer, build two similar boats with rotating airfoils in 1990 and challenge the Australians again in ’91.

First order of business: raising $300,000 to finance the project. Also, a recent videotape presentation at the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club left no doubt that a TV helicopter only 50 feet away caused the boat to capsize and break apart minutes before the first race was to start.

Sailing Notes

The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum will host a pre-Ensenada race reception April 26, from 5 p.m. to 8, featuring multihull sailors Rudy Choy, Bob Hanel, Vic Stern and Mike Kane. Hanel’s Double Bullet, later sunk in the Caribbean, set the race record of 10 hours 31 minutes 2 seconds in 1983, the same year he set the Transpac record of 7 days 7:30:15 to Hawaii. Choy’s Aikane X-5, with Kane aboard, has won the Ensenada the last two years. . . . ESPN will start its series of ’89 sailing programs with the Congressional Cup at Long Beach Monday at 8 p.m. Rod Davis, the American sailing for New Zealand, collected an unprecedented third victory in the match-racing event with a 9-0 sweep.