SAN FRANCISCO — When Dave Santori was a kid, he followed the America’s Cup sailboat race the way many of his friends followed football: He could name every kind of boat on the water and each member of each crew — from the skipper to the mastman to the bowman.
The announcement over the weekend that the America’s Cup will come to San Francisco Bay in 2013 is “beyond my wildest dreams,” the 67-year-old said Sunday. “I get choked up just saying it.”
And to think this is all happening when Santori is the rear commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, the “workingman’s sailing club” in San Francisco. The club has the good fortune and patronage of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who will be flying the Golden Gate Yacht Club burgee while defending the America’s Cup title.
“It’s not just me,” said Santori, a civil engineer. “It’s my friends who I sail with and the whole Bay Area that will be excited once they all see this happening here.”
For the first time in decades, the public will have free, front-row seats for weeks to watch the America’s Cup series of races. Unlike nearly every other America’s Cup race that has been set in open water with viewing only from a spectator boat and on special cable channels, viewers in San Francisco will be able to line up along city streets, parks and piers from the Golden Gate Bridge to Treasure Island to watch the 72-foot catamarans fly by.
“This will make for the greatest spectacle in international sailing,” said Ray Thomas, the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s vice commodore.
As early as this summer, crews from international teams are expected to descend on the bay to get a sense of the wind and current patterns. And construction of new piers and racing facilities near the Bay Bridge will need to get under way soon to be ready in time.
It wasn’t a sure thing by any means. Ellison had considered taking the international competition to Newport, R.I., or even Italy if the city of San Francisco didn’t sweeten its deal, which included giving the racing syndicate development rights and a long-term lease for three piers in return for a $55 million investment to shore up aging piers along The Embarcadero.
Members of the local sailing community were worried for months that Ellison might go elsewhere.
He certainly is a man known for making good on his threats. A decade ago, after a dispute with the venerable St. Francis Yacht Club where he was a member, he packed up his boat and crew and moved down the spit to the modest Golden Gate Yacht Club, which welcomed him with open arms.
But as much rivalry as the two yacht clubs share, the quest to hold the race in San Francisco Bay has made bosom buddies out of the clubs. They worked together for months with the city to cement the deal with Ellison and his team.
“There’s no bad blood,” said Greg Rossmann, a member of the St. Francis Yacht Club for the past dozen years. “Golden Gate approached and said we want to work together to pull off the best America’s Cup. All of us have to get together to do this right.”
Ellison’s imprint on the Golden Gate Yacht Club is everywhere, from the fleet of junior racing boats with the Oracle emblem sitting on the dock to photos on the wall of Ellison hoisting the America’s Cup trophy he won in February in Valencia, Spain.
Santori credits Ellison with helping the yacht club get out of debt and into the black. A decade ago, the billionaire joined the Golden Gate Club and brought on as members his dues-paying crew, which now numbers more than 100.
Although he isn’t around much, Ellison is a member, in good standing, of both clubs.
“He’s not vilified here,” Santori said, “obviously and for good reason.”
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at 408-278-3409.
