America’s Cup Notebook : Designer Thinks Eagle Can Reach Semifinals

Is Eagle a turkey?

Opinion is still divided as the America’s Cup challengers near the midpoint of the second round at Fremantle, Australia.

With less ballast and more sail, the Newport Beach boat, 4-8 in the first round, has appeared to be more competitive in the second, beating San Francisco’s USA and hanging in better against co-leaders America II and New Zealand.

The boat’s designer, Johan Valentijn, was disturbed when supporters became discouraged by some of the early setbacks.

Valentijn, on the phone from Newport, R.I., during a visit home, said: “When we lost to Dennis Conner, people said, ‘Gee, we’ve lost the America’s Cup already.’ ”

Valentijn isn’t predicting that Eagle will win it all but still sees hope to get into the four-boat semifinals after Christmas.

He follows general thinking that three of the boats will be Conner’s Stars & Stripes, America II and New Zealand and that the fourth berth is up for grabs. “That fourth spot is really going to be a dogfight, and we can be in there as much as anybody,” he said.

There are still two disturbing factors in the Eagle campaign: lack of funds and lack of confidence in the handling of the boat. The latter led to Gerry Driscoll’s departure as director of operations and may have been reinforced when Eagle misjudged the lay line against New Zealand this week and took itself out of the race.

The syndicate announced after the first round that it was spending $231,000 for 18 new sails and had ordered a new, lighter mast and boom.

“We’re still waiting for sails,” Valentijn said. “And I just found out this week that the mast isn’t going to be finished until the next series, if we’re lucky. We have the boom.”

Some new sails have been delivered, and the rest are expected to be ready next week.

“(But) you need 18 new sails before the (second) series starts,” Valentijn said.

There has been talk in Fremantle of separating the challengers into A and B fleets for the third round in December to eliminate the deadwood and intensify the serious competition.

Halfway through the round, the top two B boats would move up into the A bracket, leaving the others behind to wallow among themselves.

Currently, that would put Stars & Stripes, America II, New Zealand, White Crusader, Italia and USA in the A group, with Eagle, Heart of America, Canada II, French Kiss, Challenge France and Azzurra in B.

Conner had a woman as a member of his crew Wednesday.

Dory Street Vogel, wife of bowman Scott Vogel and backup to navigator Peter Isler on Stars & Stripes, subbed for Isler. Considering the light competition--Heart of America--Isler got the day off, and Conner won easily by 3:58.

Vogel, 24, is originally from Ireland and was on the Ft. Schuyler Maritime Academy sailing team a few years ago. Participation by women in the yachting series is rare, but their presence in crews dates back to 1886 when Mrs. William Henn was aboard Britain’s Galatea.

All of the keels for the American boats, except those for New York’s America II, were built at Keelco in Wilmington, amid the heavy shipping operations of the Port of Los Angeles.

Keelco president Don Huseman said that his biggest problem was keeping the syndicates’ secrets separate.

“Every syndicate thought theirs was the most important,” he said.

But, for the most part, they couldn’t even watch their own keels being built, and to this day Huseman can’t discuss any details of the designs.

“I still have security agreements with the syndicates,” he said.

Huseman, something of a showman, has had fun with the problem, though. When an Australian TV crew called about shooting some footage, he was ready.

As soon as the crew set foot on the property, they were detected by a TV monitor and a security guard set off an old destroyer crash siren Huseman had mounted on the top of a shed.

Just for good measure, the submarine diving horn Keelco uses for an outside telephone bell was going full blast, five shotgun-armed guards appeared on the roof and some others chased the TV crew down an alley with a flame thrower.

It made for great theater in Australia.

All of the 12-meter keels are winged, except the one Keelco made for San Francisco’s USA, which has rudders fore and aft. The ESPN show last week confirmed it to be little more than a lead torpedo hanging from a strut.

“We’re not dragging those silly wings in the water,” skipper Tom Blackaller says.

Another question raised about the keels is that some may contain spent uranium, an illegal substance that, Huseman says, is uranium “that’s lost most of its pizazz.”

Whereas lead is 11 times as heavy as water, uranium is 19 times heavier, potentially allowing a keel to be built smaller for less drag but equal ballast.

The New Zealand boat is more of a concern to ESPN.

“It’s likely there will be an American boat in the final (against the Australian defender) but that’s one thing we’re concerned about,” publicist Chris LaPlaca said.

ESPN is exploring uncharted waters for American television. Sailing received only a few minutes during the two weeks of the Olympics in 1984, and early technology has involved the development of gyro-stabilized camera mounts on photo boats so the picture isn’t constantly jumping around.

“We’re learning as we go,” said Geoff Mason, the executive producer. “It’s a very difficult sport to cover live.”

The coverage will go live in January, with the races starting at 9 p.m. PST. Now, with the taped shows, Mason estimates that 50 to 75 hours of footage are being edited down to a weekly half-hour.

America’s Cup Notes Eagle was ahead by 4 minutes 50 seconds on the final leg Wednesday when sluggish Challenge France withdrew. Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes had an equally easy time disposing of Heart of America by 4:40, and Tom Blackaller’s USA sank the challenge fleet’s other hopelessly slow 12-meter, Azzurra, by 3:58. The day’s most competitive race was Italia’s 37-second win over Canada II, which came from behind to lead at the last mark but was overtaken on the final leg. America II had a tight fight with White Crusader until the British boat snapped a spinnaker pole on the first reach and fell behind by the approximate final margin of a minute. New Zealand crushed French Kiss by 2:23. Protests by White Crusader and French Kiss were dismissed. . . . Today’s races matched Eagle against Heart of America and Stars & Stripes against Italia. . . .