Regatta on the Bay

Four-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts, 48, returns to San Diego, 16 years after he took the America’s Cup away from the United States, with his own regatta, the RC 44 Championship Tour. The season opener will be sailed on San Diego Bay from March 2-6 next year. The RC 44 is a high-performance, 44-foot sloop co-designed by Coutts. Fourteen teams of professional sailors, many of them associated with the America’s Cup, are expected to compete on the Bay. “It’s a great place to sail,” said Coutts, who has owned a home on Coronado, across the bay from downtown San Diego, since the 199s. Coutts and Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of Oracle Corp., will compete on the BMW Oracle Racing team.