First, Japanese Sailors Must Win at the Game of Catch-Up : Sailing: Nippon Challenge syndicate works to hurdle cultural, technological barriers.

When a New Zealand skipper needs to alert a Japanese crew to re-trim the sails for a change of course, does he reach for his pocket dictionary? Consult an on-board interpreter? Wave his hands frantically and descriptively?

All Chris Dickson does is bark, “Jibe yoi “ -- prepare to jibe--and the sails swing around like clockwork.

Tack? Taku.

Port? Porto.

Starboard? Starboardo.

See how easy it is to sail in Japanese?

“Although the spellings are different, the (terms) are rendered almost the same phonetically,” says Kaoru Ogimi, vice commodore of the Nippon Ocean Racing Club that has mounted the Nippon Challenge for the America’s Cup. “Tack on a vowel at the end of a word and it’s Japan-ized.”

Most of Japan’s sailing terminology was created in the last 35 years, since the NORC was organized. Before that, the country’s recreational sailing was nil, so its apparent position as a major player in next year’s competition at San Diego must be credited to what Ogimi calls “a headlong rush to catch up with the West,” culturally and technologically.

Along with the Bengal Bay Challenge, Japan will have two of the 12 foreign syndicates at San Diego, with Nippon the more prominent. It all goes back to Admiral Matthew C. Perry, Ogimi says.

The America’s Cup was two years old when Perry steamed into Tokyo Bay with a small fleet of warships in 1853 and again in 1854, hoping to persuade Japan to strike a favorable (for the U.S.) trade treaty.

In Ogimi’s words, Perry “knocked on our door in not necessarily polite fashion and woke us up to the folly of our self-imposed isolation.”

The Treaty of Kanagawa was signed, and Japan hasn’t been the same since, although World War II was a setback.

“After the war, we began in an oppressive situation,” Ogimi said. “Forty-five years ago, we had nothing. Tokyo was a moonscape (and Japan was) a burned-out, charred country. Our sailing started after the war.”

But a logical progression has brought the Japanese to the America’s Cup.

“Our problem was divided into two parts,” Ogimi said. “The first was hardware--the boat itself and all the technology that goes into it.”

No problem. “For 140 years we’ve had a pretty good track record of assimilating western technology and returning in very short order an improved product, with a twist or two,” Ogimi said.

“The big question mark was the people. None of us had ever sailed in boats of any size approximating these, not even the 12-meters we acquired from the Kiwis.”

After the 1987 competition at Fremantle, Western Australia, when Dennis Conner reclaimed the Cup for the U.S., the Nippon Challenge bought two of New Zealand’s fiberglass 12-meters that had performed so surprisingly well.

Then it hired the skipper, Dickson, who had fallen out with Mercury Bay syndicate chief Michael Fay. Dickson is the top-ranked match-racing skipper in the world.

“To exceed the best sailors in the world, we said we have to get the best sailor on our own grounds on an everyday basis,” Ogimi said. “Every day, around the clock, we attempt in our own camp to get our own guys to reach and go beyond Chris.”

Nippon’s first boat in the new America’s Cup class was launched last April, when Ogimi dropped a bombshell in response to an innocent request for comment from a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

Alluding to recent Japanese acquisitions, Ogimi said, “Well, look, we can’t bring back Rockefeller Center (to Japan), we can’t bring back Columbia Pictures, but we do want to try to win and bring back the Cup.”

The remark may become as much a part of Cup legend as the unknown lackey’s alleged remark to Queen Victoria at the first competition in 1851, as the schooner America crossed the finish line and he looked down the channel for the 16 British entries: “Your majesty, there is no second.”

Ogimi assures audiences now that nothing was misunderstood in translation and that “I did not (say) it in a flippant way.”

There was no translation. Ogimi speaks perfect English, with a slight British accent.

“My father was in the diplomatic service,” he explains. “My mother was British.”

And he attended Reed College in Portland, Ore.

Chairman of the the Nippon syndicate is Tatsumitsu Yamasaki, an ocean racing sailor who heads S&B; Shokuhin, purported to be the world’s largest manufacturer of spices and food products. Yamasaki’s English is not as good as Ogimi’s but considerably better than Dickson’s Japanese, although the latter may be gaining.

By living in Japan since early last year, Dickson will fulfill the Cup requirement of two years’ residence and be eligible to sail the Japanese boat, although there is no assurance he will.

His rival for the helm is Makoto Namba. The issue was laughable a year ago, when Namba was taking regular drubbings on the world match-racing circuit as Dickson dominated the competition. But Namba’s skills have improved dramatically with the experience and training he’s gained from Dickson to where he is now ranked sixth internationally.

At some point, Yamasaki will pick his skipper, a decision that could bring anguish. Namba may never be the sailor Dickson is. Few are. But a Kiwi sailing Japan’s proud boat?

Crews are limited to 16, including the skipper. The chosen skipper will select his final crew from among 28 others currently on the team. Four are from New Zealand, although one--Robert Fry--is regarded more as a Japanese because he has a Japanese wife and has lived in the country for 18 years.

Some of the 28 were hand-picked from Japan’s limited group of world-class sailors. Others survived from 300 hopefuls who tried out with the stipulation that anyone shorter than 6-foot-3 or lighter than 85 kilos (187 pounds) need not apply.

Sumo wrestlers were considered for a time. They might have made marvelous grinders but would have destroyed the total crew weight limit of 1,440 kilograms (3,168 pounds).

“We looked very hard, but they weigh too much,” Yamasaki said.

The Nippon Challenge’s first two boats are scheduled to arrive soon in San Diego, and two full crews will be sailing them this month.

The program is budgeted at 6 billion yen ($40 million), supported by 30 corporate sponsors with names familiar to any American who owns a compact car or television set. There also are some 6,400 private citizens who have contributed small amounts, giving ordinary people a stake in the effort.

Ogimi recently told a luncheon audience of 800 in San Diego, “Corporate sponsors--why are they supporting us? It’s not market shares, it’s not the bottom line. There is no bottom line in the America’s Cup. We all know that. It was because they shared in our dream and inspiration to go out and fight for this mug.

“The world today is not what we would like to see. We hope that this America’s Cup will make for friendly competition on an international scale. I want to invite you all to Japan in ’96 (laughter), and I can assure you it will be a great event to foster international understanding.”

Malin Burnham, president of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, presented framed portraits of the trophy to the Japanese and told them the first thing they must understand:

“I am here to tell you, the closest thing you will be taking back to Japan in the form of the America’s Cup is this plaque.”

Everybody laughed. Nobody knows who will be laughing in ’92.