Magic Is Winner Over Victory ’83 in Match Race Off Long Beach

Bill Crispin, project manager of the Eagle syndicate, had a request after Saturday’s victory over Yacht Club Italiano, the world 12-meter champions.

“I wish you guys in the press would quit calling Magic ‘Dennis Conner’s discard boat,’ ” Crispin said.

The America’s Cup crew from the Newport Harbor Yacht Club has grown rather fond of its undersized orphan, which they sailed to a one-minute one-second margin over Victory ’83 off Long Beach--the first international 12-meter match race ever on the West Coast.

In 1983 Conner rejected Magic in favor of Liberty, which lost the America’s Cup to Australia II at Newport, R.I. But Magic now has something Liberty didn’t have and Aussie II did: a winged keel.

“I think it helped a little bit,” skipper Rod Davis said.

Rival Lorenzo Bortolotti said: “It changes the boat very much. The problem with the boat before was it didn’t stand up in a breeze.”

Neither boat will compete at Perth, but the technology gained from their practice together this spring will provide input for the two syndicates’ campaign craft.

Davis and his 10-man crew also had won 8 of 12 informal races, and if they stay within a minute of Victory today, they’ll claim the series on overall time. Saturday they required more than three hours to finish as the wind played hide and seek, shifting by as much as 60 degrees west and then back south again, and fluctuating from 15 knots to almost nothing in certain spots.

Davis led by about three minutes on the first leg before hitting dead air, and was only 10 seconds ahead at the last windward mark. The wind died completely at the leeward mark, where Davis led by 33 seconds but only two boat lengths.

Then he found a new breeze first and sailed away. Bortolotti forced 19 tacks on the last leg, but Davis had the snappier tacks and gained on every one.