Congressional Cup Takes Spotlight

There will be no America’s Cup racing Wednesday through March 27, but the Long Beach Yacht Club has scheduled its 28th Congressional Cup to fill the interlude.

Ten skippers from six countries--several with America’s Cup backgrounds--will sail Catalina 37s in a round-robin series of match races March 23-25, with a championship sail-off on March 26.

No former champion is entered, although a couple are in San Diego: Chris Dickson, winner of the last two Congressionals, and Rod Davis, the only three-time winner. Dickson is sailing for Nippon Challenge, Davis for New Zealand, and they are expected to be headed into the America’s Cup challenger semifinals starting March 29.

Peter Isler, America’s top-ranked match racer and sixth in the world, also is busy as an America’s Cup commentator for ESPN, which starts live coverage on March 28.

The challengers’ third round ends Tuesday. The only America’s Cup skipper entered in the Congressional Cup is Pedro Campos of Spain, who says he will be there whether he qualifies for the semifinals or not. Bertrand Pace, Ville de Paris’ performance tactician, also is entered, and he plans to bring some of Marc Pajot’s crew along.

The rest of the lineup:

--Robbie Haines, runner-up to Dickson in 1990, a crack offshore racer and a 1984 Olympic gold medalist.

--John Kostecki of San Francisco, 1988 Olympic silver medalist and former world J-24 and Soling champion.

--Larry Klein of San Diego, former Soling and Etchells 22 world champion and Rolex yachtsman of the year.

--Terry Hutchinson of Michigan, who won the Ficker Cup qualifying event.

--Steve Steiner, who won a sail-off to represent the host club for the third time.

--Chris Law of England, former America’s Cup skipper, world Soling champion and four-time Olympian.

--Pelle Petterson of Sweden, former America’s Cup skipper and world Star champion.

--Valdemar Bandolowski of Denmark, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Bandolowski, Klein and Kostecki had hoped to be involved with the America’s Cup, the first two with their own campaigns that didn’t get off the ground. Later, Klein and Kostecki were with Bill Koch’s America 3team, until relationships soured.

The Congressional offers landlubbers a rare opportunity to watch world-class sailing without leaving the beach. The race course will be set just west of Belmont Pier, with viewing from the grassy bluffs along Ocean Boulevard. There is no admission charge.

Sailing Notes

Those who get nostalgic about wooden boats will love the 1993 Transpac race to Hawaii. Three old favorites--Windward Passage, Ticonderoga and Ragtime--will compete in the IMS class for cruiser-racers. Windward Passage, which won the race in 1971, was dismasted near Panama last year and is now owned by Kevin Jaffe of Newport Beach. The boat has been undergoing extensive refitting at Bud Tretter’s Marina Shipyard in Long Beach. Bill Boyd’s Ticonderoga, another old campaigner, also has been refitted for IMS, as was Pat Farrah’s Ragtime before the 1991 race.

The Assn. of Santa Monica Bay Yacht Clubs will conduct its annual “Medical Emergencies at Sea” seminar on March 31 at Redondo Beach YC and on April 21 at Santa Monica YC. Both sessions will start at 7 p.m. and are open to the public at no charge. Details: (818) 222-4341. . . . U.S. Olympic trials will start with Tornado catamarans at California YC in Marina del Rey April 3-14. The 470 dinghy sailors, men and women, will compete at Newport Harbor YC April 4-15, and the single-handed Finn and women’s Europe dinghy classes are scheduled at Balboa YC on the same dates. Local contenders include Michael Sturman and Robert Little, third-ranked in campaigning a 470 with backing from CYC.

Roy Disney missed Pyewacket’s record run in the San Diego-to-Manzanillo race last month because of a stockholders’ meeting in Florida but joined son Roy Pat Disney and the crew in Manzanillo for the MEXORC series. The Santa Cruz 70 also won that somewhat laid-back event with a string of 3-1-1-2-2-1 finishes. The boat, along with Antonio Elias’ Ole, then headed for the Panama Canal and Europe to compete in a series of races this summer.

Bill M. Lewis, the 1989 commodore of the Navy Yacht Club in Long Beach, has been honored as yachtsman of the year by the Yacht Club Assn. of Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors for his “creative and timely contributions to the yachting community.” . . . Daily reports on the America’s Cup trials are available at 1-900-555-5555. Morning prerace commentaries will switch to postrace wrapups in the late afternoon. Cost is 95 cents a minute.