Conner Is Breezing Into Final : Wind Shifts Help His Yacht Gain 2-0 Lead in Semifinal Round

Peter Isler cast his eyes skyward to the small, dark clouds rolling over the shore, the sign of what he called a “gradient breeze,” in contrast to a sea breeze, which is more consistent.

“Our weather people had prepared us with two scenarios,” said Isler, who is Dennis Conner’s navigator on Stars & Stripes. “The main thing was the shifts, and Dennis played them well.”

Isler called them 15-degree shifts. From Tom Blackaller’s point of view on USA, 3 minutes and 2 seconds in arrears, they were 30 degrees.

Either way, Stars & Stripes’ combination of luck and skill in being in the right place at the right time made the difference and lifted the San Diego boat to a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven semifinal of the America’s Cup challenger trials.

When a shift sweeps over a race course, boats beating upwind rotate with it, so the boat nearest the direction of the shift receives, literally, a windfall. Hold your hands side by side, then turn them to one side and you’ll see that one is suddenly in front. That’s how it works in sailboat racing.

Blackaller figured that Conner benefitted from a 30-degree shift on each of the first two upwind legs. The first allowed Conner to overcome an 18-second deficit incurred when he jumped the line and had to restart. The other gained him a minute and a second from a seven-second lead at the first leeward mark and an insurmountable margin of 1:08.

“When he went left, the wind went left,” Blackaller said. “When he went right, the wind went right.”

Isler said the final margin belied the difference between the boats. “The boats are still very close in speed,” he said.

A red flag flown by Blackaller from the first leeward mark kept the Stars & Stripes celebration subdued until word reached the dock that Blackaller had decided not to protest over Conner’s deliberate rounding that held USA outside.

Malin Burnham, the president of Conner’s Sail America syndicate, had suggested that Blackaller wouldn’t follow through after studying videotapes.

“That was no protest,” Burnham said. “(Tactician Paul) Cayard just gets frustrated when he’s behind.”

But Stars & Stripes was ready.

“We looked at the video,” Burnham said. “Absolutely no foul whatsoever. Tommy Blackaller does not always tell the truth. You can quote me on that because I’ve had some personal experience. He can’t beat us on the water so he’ll try another technique.”

A few days earlier, Blackaller had responded to other remarks by calling Burnham “a washed-up sailor.”

Stars & Stripes tactician Tom Whidden called the premature start “just a bad move, a miscalculation.”

Burnham said, facetiously, that the new keel made the boat “faster than Dennis figured. That’s why we were over the line early.”

The win gave Conner a 3-2 edge over Blackaller in the trials overall, but most pleasing to the San Diego team was how the boat performed in the 15- to 16-knot winds that were once on the low end of its preferred scale and right on USA’s optimum conditions.

“He’s still very fast but we knew right after the start that we were faster,” Whidden said. “It looks like he still has trouble steering the boat. It looks like he yaws around.

“We’ve got two more things we’d like to try. We’re not through. We’ve got a plan for the Kiwis and we’ve got a plan for the cup (finals).”

Ah, yes, the Kiwis. Sunday they finished 2:46 ahead of French Kiss. Monday it was 2:40. New Zealand skipper Chris Dickson nay have to install a stereo in KZ7 to keep the crew awake.

New Zealand has won 35 of 36 races and 26 in a row. Before you ask, it needs to win only 10 more to win the Cup. But then, so does Conner.

The Kiwis try to keep themselves sharp by listing little mistakes they make every day. They don’t make many big ones.

“It’s a little bit tough when the only thing we can score on is tactics when we’re two minutes ahead,” Dickson said. “We certainly enjoy the close racing a lot more and it gives our crew the opportunity to excel when there’s a standard right next to them . . . to do a better job than the other boat and immediately see the result.

“Because they enjoy close races more, I think they perform a little better. It is a little tough to keep that high standard in races that have large gaps between the boats.”

Conner also tries to keep his crew pumped up, race by race, Isler said.

“Dennis keeps saying, ‘This is the America’s Cup right here.’ Of course, he’ll say that the next series and the next one.”

The Stars & Stripes people don’t seem to think it’s too early to talk about the next series. They have been scrimmaging against Australia IV before their races the last two days, and Whidden is sizing up New Zealand.

“They look vulnerable downwind,” he said. “They look vulnerable in medium and light conditions, and we’re going to be faster upwind than we were.”

The defender trials tightened up Monday when Kookaburra II defeated Australia IV by 59 seconds, throwing Australia IV and Kookaburra III back into a first-place tie with 59 points apiece. Meanwhile, Kookaburra II clobbered Steak ‘n Kidney by 2:06 and has 46 points to Steak ‘n Kidney’s 18. Each win is worth six points.

The usual protests remained to be resolved, however. Kookaburra II’s stern swung around and struck the side of Australia IV in pre-start maneuvering and both sides protested.

Australia IV spokesman Vern Reid said: “As usual when we race the Kookaburras, the race will be decided in the protest room.”

Of the 31 protests during the defender trials, Kookaburra II has filed eight and Kookaburra III and Australia IV five each.

The only boats the Kookaburras haven’t protested are one another. Kookaburra II also has yet to win a protest. Maybe one of these nights they’ll get a wind shift in the protest room.

America’s Cup Notes Among the defenders, Syd Fischer, Steak ‘n Kidney chief, finally won a protest when he was awarded a win over Kookaburra II in Sunday’s race. Earlier Monday, Fischer had launched another dispute and a flurry of press releases, complaining about a misplaced videotape that might have helped his case in the double protest with Kookaburra II Sunday. Fischer claims that while a Kookaburra witness was telling the jury that the “race cam” equipment was not working properly at the time, a TV outside the jury room was showing clips of the incident. “It appears that (Perth) Channel 7 . . . are cooperating with the Kookaburra team in this unsporting suppression of vital evidence,” Fischer said. Ken Court, Kookaburra syndicate director, responded: “These allegations are baseless and constitute a slur on the integrity of (Kookaburra). Taskforce 87 is considering other action.”