Port Officials Like the Sound of America’s Cup Defense in S.D.

San Diego Unified Port District commissioners, guardians of a pot of money that everyone covets, do not have their checkbooks out yet to write a multimillion-dollar donation to sponsor San Diego as host city for the America’s Cup competition in years to come.

First, they want to examine the merchandise and peek at the price tag. But indications are that they’re ready to buy.

A 10-member San Diego delegation in Perth for the Australian yachting spectacle is charged with more than cheering the 12-meter yacht Stars & Stripes and its crew in their bid to regain the yachting trophy. They are there to spy on this year’s America’s Cup hosts, to learn from their mistakes and cash in on their expertise, stay-at-home port Commissioner Mel Portwood of Imperial Beach said Tuesday.

“We’ll know a lot more about the whole proposal when the delegation gets home,” Portwood said. Commissioner Raymond Burk of Coronado and Commission Chairman Dan Larsen of San Diego are among the San Diego contingent.

Portwood and Commissioner William Rick of San Diego both speak in terms of when, not if, the Port District will commit funds to build the required facilities for the next yachting World Series, although neither will go as far as Larsen, who said, before heading for Australia:

“I for one am very enthusiastic about it . . . and I don’t think there will be any problem at all in committing the port to cooperate and get behind this thing.”

Delton (Rip) Reopelle, a port commissioner from National City, adds his vote to the effort: “I’m very supportive at this point of doing all we can to bring the America’s Cup competition here.”

At the last commission meeting two weeks ago, attorney Louis Wolfsheimer, a San Diego commissioner, led the rooting section for San Diego’s bid to present the next America’s Cup defense. Behind his enthusiasm are cold facts: The event brings in millions in “fresh money” from outside the area to boost the local economy.

“From what I gather, there’s a bonanza of money that comes into a community with this thing up to two years before the actual race is run. We then prosper as well as our (Port District) tenants,” Wolfsheimer said recently. “We’re trying to show early in the game that we want this thing, and to that end we’re trying to find out exactly what is needed.”

Rick admitted that he wrestled for a while with his conscience, attempting to “find an intellectual basis” to justify the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars on a yacht race that would last only a few months and would be held here--if the United States continues to retain the trophy--every three or four years.

His mind was made up in favor of support after a trade tour in the Far East where, he found, “all they know about San Diego is the zoo.” America’s Cup could remedy the “total absence of image of San Diego” in the rest of the world, especially the Far East, just as it has for Perth and Fremantle, Australia.

According to yachting authorities, the races would remain in San Diego--or wherever the San Diego Yacht Club designates--for as long as a U.S. yacht--Dennis Conner’s or any other U.S. entry--emerges victorious. Only a loss to another nation can take away the San Diego club’s right to select the competition site.

Commissioner Phil Creaser of Chula Vista made the port commission endorsement of America’s Cup competition in San Diego unanimous.

“We have an opportunity to do the same thing here that Peter Ueberroth did with the Olympic Games in Los Angeles,” Creaser said, stressing that he was not “equating a yacht race with the Olympics. I think the port should underwrite the race and participate in the profits. That way we all win.”

Times staff writer Armando Acuna contributed to this story.