Providence - Rhode Island is mounting a bid to host the next America's Cup even as Larry Ellison, the billionaire software mogul whose racing team captured the trophy last weekend, is preparing to be publicly feted with celebrations in two California cities also angling for the sailing competition.

Officials in the Ocean State are drawing on the rich sailing heritage of Newport, which hosted the America's Cup from 1930 to 1983, and the expansive and open waterways of Narragansett Bay as Rhode Island competes with San Diego and San Francisco to be the next venue.

Halsey Herreshoff, president of the Herreshoff Marine Museum and America's Cup Hall of Fame in Bristol, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was traveling to San Francisco to deliver Ellison a congratulatory note from Gov. Don Carcieri that also urges him to consider Newport.

"I think it's awfully early to even make an estimate about it, but the fact is that of those three places, we clearly have the best sailing," Herreshoff said.

Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing Team is making a victory tour with the cup, the oldest trophy in international sports, after winning the 33rd edition last Sunday in the Mediterranean Sea. His team gets to select the next venue, and Ellison has mentioned Newport, San Francisco and San Diego - which previously hosted the competition - as possible sites.

The first stop of the tour comes Saturday in San Francisco, where Ellison plans to meet with Mayor Gavin Newsom and attend a City Hall celebration. He'll be in San Diego the following day for another celebration.

Herreshoff said Newport - nicknamed City by the Sea and home to an inn and major avenue bearing the America's Cup name - has natural advantages over its California competitors, including more consistent and steady wind and less cluttered waterfronts. There are also boat building and storage facilities along the bay, plus access to open and deep water.

Hosting the cup could also provide a financial bonanza in a state sagging under gaping budget deficits and an unemployment rate that, at nearly 13 percent, is among the nation's highest. But whether Rhode Island has the financial wherewithal to land an event of international magnitude remains to be seen.

"It has immense potential to help this state in every way - jobs, people coming," Herreshoff said. "If we can get this, it means years of benefit here."

Meanwhile, Providence Mayor and congressional candidate David Cicilline called on leaders from his city and Newport to combine on a strategy for returning the cup to Rhode Island.