America’s Cup Trials : Conner Will Try New Winged Keel

San Diego’s Sail America syndicate still believes that careful evolution, not radical revolution, is the way to win the America’s Cup.

That conviction will be tested when Dennis Conner sails Stars & Stripes ’87 against Tom Blackaller’s oddball USA from San Francisco in the challenger semifinals starting here Dec. 28.

Conner’s team prefers a more conservative approach, so to Fremantle they came, they saw--and they copied.

Syndicate President Malin Burnham said Friday that S&S; ’87 will have a new winged keel. It probably will be quite similar to Buddy Melges’ “tiplets on winglets” for Heart of America, and Steak ‘n Kidney’s Kookaburra copy that dramatically increased the speed of those boats in the latest round of trials.

Those keels are like little feet spread wide apart, providing so much added lift and stability that the boat virtually walks on water. The wings are thin for minimum drag and angled slightly down, tapering out to about two feet wide at the maximum span, which is the width of the boat.

Sorry we can’t show you a picture, folks, but they’re kind of fussy about that.

Burnham said that Stars & Stripes’ old wings “were cut off within 90 minutes after hitting the dock” when the third round ended last Monday.

Secrets don’t last long around Fremantle. Especially on a calm day, the clear, shallow waters of Gage Roads reveal all.

“We’ve spent I don’t know how many man hours in a helicopter looking at keel shapes,” Burnham said.

From those observations of who was going fast with what kind of keel, Stars & Stripes’ designers drew one up and tested it in Offshore Technology Corporation’s ocean simulator test tank in Escondido for three weeks.

“We are so sure our changed shape is a winner that we aren’t even testing it (on the boat itself),” Burnham said. “We are 90 to 95% sure we’ll get an increase in speed.”

Another advantage of the new keel, will be to get the boat to tack better. “It has been a little sluggish in tacking,” Burnham said.

Burnham told of the change at a press conference aboard Carmac VI, the $4-million, 137-foot cruiser lent to the syndicate by an American corporation to entertain sponsors and other VIPs during the campaign. He noted: “There has been a lot of talk about this so-called ‘revolutionary’ boat (USA). I think we should focus on the evolutionary boats.”

Stars & Stripes ‘87, for example, “is four to five minutes faster around the race course, compared to Liberty (Conner’s ’83 boat),” Burnham said.

On other subjects, Burnham said:

--If in the scheduled remeasurement for semifinalists, New Zealand’s first-place fiberglass KZ7 is “substantially out, the boat’s gotta be thrown out.”

--Should Stars & Stripes ultimately win the cup, it’s uncertain whether the 1990 defense would be conducted in San Diego.

--Stars & Stripes got the inside track over USA to sails and other spare gear offered by the eliminated America II because “we made it a point of getting to them (America II) before (USA) did.”

--Conner eliminated Blackaller from the last two America’s Cup trials in ’80 and ’83 “and is really excited to make it three in a row. As far as we’re concerned, the semifinal is a California state championship.”

The semifinalist boats will be checked by R.J. Rymill, principal surveyor for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, under whose regulations the 12-meter yachts were built. Burnham was emphatic that New Zealand should not be allowed to correct any deficiencies found in its boat, such as being too light in the ends, and then continue to compete.

“Not at this stage. They can’t fix it now and say they beat everybody fairly,” he said.