12-Metre regatta on San Francisco Bay

12 May 2015

The America’s Cup yacht Freedom, sailed by Dennis Conner in Freemantle in 1980 – photo: wikipedia.org

12-METRE REGATTA: Tom Ehman, a former America’s Cup executive, is launching the Golden Gate Yacht Racing Challenge to be sailed annually on San Francisco Bay beginning in July 2017.

According to an Associated Press report yesterday, the event will be an updated version of the venerable 12-metre class designed to “restore stability and style to yacht racing”.

The regatta will offer yacht racing‘s largest purse, $500,000, have a strict nationality rule and be contested in the strong, steady breeze that blows in through the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mr Ehman said he envisions the Golden Gate Challenge as the Wimbledon of yacht racing in that it will be held every year at the same venue. Unlike the America’s Cup, Mr Ehman says all teams will be challengers, meaning they’ll start on an equal footing each year.

While Mr Ehman hopes to attract some big name owners and skippers, but points out the star of the regatta could be the 12-metres themselves.

They were used in what many consider the golden era of the America’s Cup, from 1958-87, when larger than life personalities, such as Dennis Conner and Ted Turner, dominated racing held in Newport, Rhode Island, and then Fremantle, Australia.

The 12-metre era ended when Mr Conner won back the America’s Cup in the big wind and waves off Fremantle in 1987.

Mr Ehman said he’s having designers look at modernising the 12-metres and hopes to keep the cost below $3 million per boat.

All boats would have the same hull shape, which would make the regatta a test of sailing skill, rather than a design competition, helping to hold down costs.

He’d like the hull to look like Freedom, which Mr Conner sailed to victory in the 1980 America’s Cup.

Beyond the cost of a boat, Mr Ehman believes a team can compete in the Golden Gate Challenge for less than $1 million a year, far less than staging an America’s Cup campaign.

via Boating Business – 12-Metre regatta on San Francisco Bay.