Notebook : Ehman of Sail America Believes Conner’s Vote Count Was All Wet
The Eagle upheaval and dry land sparring among America’s Cup challengers has kept interest high leading into the second round of trials, which begin Sunday off Fremantle, Australia.
Dennis Conner said last week that the vote to take core samples of New Zealand’s fiberglass boat was 8-3 in favor, one short of the two-thirds needed from the 13 challengers. USA’s Tom Blackaller was absent, and one syndicate was believed to have abstained.
But Tom Ehman, executive director of Sail America, disputes Conner’s count.
“I don’t know how they could know that,” Ehman said by phone after returning home to Newport R.I. “It was a secret ballot and the votes were counted in secret and never announced.”
The only announcement was that the measure hadn’t passed. Ehman intimated that he believed there were more than three votes against the measure. Without saying how America II voted, he said Buddy Melges’ Heart of America and Canada II had both stated publicly they would vote against it, and it’s assumed New Zealand did. Golden Gate general manager Ron Young indicated that Blackaller did have conflicting business but didn’t go out of his way to get there, either.
“Tom’s not going to stand up for anything Dennis Conner is doing,” Young said. “Everybody fights their own battles.”
Once the second round starts, nobody is allowed to change boats so, legal or not, New Zealand will continue to campaign KZ7.
The departure of general manager Gerry Driscoll and two other officials from the Eagle operation this week is hardly unique to America’s Cup campaigns.
Some syndicates past and present would make a job with George Steinbrenner seem like lifetime security. When things go wrong, skippers, managers and designers seldom agree on whether the boat or the crew is to blame.
Alan Bond’s camp is in similar turmoil about how well Australia III (8-2) and Australia IV (4-6) are doing in the defender trials. In fact, Bond’s boys still disagree on whether John Bertrand’s sailing or Ben Lexcen’s boat won the cup in 1983.
A San Francisco TV station did a special entitled, “USA, the Secret Down Under.”
The secret is supposedly the underside of the boat, but it’s the worst-kept secret in Fremantle. Everybody knows the boat has rudders fore and aft. They just aren’t sure how they work.
So far, they seem to be working pretty well. USA was 8-4 and won its last seven races in the first round, although Blackaller kept complaining about steering problems.
Ehman said: “You wonder how much is smoke and how much is a problem.”
Conner said USA was putting on a deeper forward rudder between rounds because the original has been lifting out of the water going upwind in a chop, allowing the bow to blow off to leeward.
“We haven’t said we’re doing anything like that,” Young said from Golden Gate Challenge headquarters in San Francisco. “We are changing the steering mechanism, (but) he’s wrong about it coming out of the water. He doesn’t understand the physics of it. A lot of people misunderstand our concept. People are guessing about what the boat does.”
When turning, the aft rudder angles in the opposite direction, like any conventional rudder, while the forward rudder turns the other way to lead the boat through the tack. But Young was evasive when asked whether the rudders are controlled independently or in unison through a complex linkage.
However, he did agree that it was something like steering a hook-and-ladder fire truck, which requires a separate driver on the tail end.
What rivals do know is that USA is the only 12-Meter in Fremantle without a winged keel. The clear waters of the Indian Ocean have revealed that the keel consists of a torpedo-like bulb hung from a strut.
“We have a picture of it,” Ehman said.
The arrangement also produces less drag than a winged keel.
“Downwind, when all the angles (of the rudders) are right, the sucker goes like a streak,” Young said.
Most rivals concede that USA may be the fastest boat of all downwind.
“Remember,” Young said, “this is not a sailboat race. It is enterprise and technology.”
Ehman said America II is sending an experimental keel to Fremantle from Connecticut at a cost of $100,000.
They’ll try it out on one of their two backup boats “as part of an ongoing process,” Ehman said. “We’re extremely happy with the posture of (US) 46.”
America II never considered selling one of its extras, US 42 and 44, to forlorn Courageous, which cashed in its chips after the first round.
“We need all three boats,” Ehman said. “It wouldn’t be fair to our guys that worked up those boats to go out and sail against them. Besides, you’ve got to have two boats to tune up against.”
America II, Conner’s Stars & Stripes and New Zealand are all 11-1.
“The key thing,” Ehman said, “is who continues to improve and who doesn’t. If we stand fast, none of us is going to win this thing from the Aussies. They are very tough.”