Aussies Cheer After Conner Takes First Race Against Kiwis

TODAY’S RACES

Stars & Stripes, the American yacht skippered by Dennis Conner, defeated New Zealand’s KZ7 by 1 minute 36 seconds to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven America’s Cup challenge final today at Freemantle, Australia.

In the opening race of the best-of-nine defender’s final, Kookaburra III defeated Australia IV by 29 seconds. However, both crews filed protests.

Sailing may yet catch on as a spectator sport, and for Dennis Conner, the more spectators the merrier.

Remember when Arnie’s Army used to kick his opponents’ golf balls into the rough?

“Today, the spectators were red, white and blue, not (New Zealand) black and white,” Conner said Tuesday after steering Stars & Stripes to a 1-minute 20-second win over Chris Dickson’s KZ7 Tuesday in the opener of the best-of-seven America’s Cup challenge final.

Afterward, at his dock, Conner accepted a 40-cent contribution from Joe Calzada, 4, of nearby Peppermint Grove, a suburb of Perth, and gave the lad some Stars & Stripes souvenirs.

“This whole town is pro-American,” Conner said. “The horns and whistles when we won the race were reminiscent of Newport (R.I.). We just wonder if they’ll love us just as much when we race against the Aussies (in the Cup final).”

When? Not if?

It was clear Tuesday that Conner is at the top of his game, such as Palmer, in his prime, hitching up his pants and drilling 1-irons to the pin at Augusta.

The boat was right, the wind was right--20 to 26 knots--and the opponent was right: an upstart young newcomer who learned that a 37-1 record, including 28 straight wins, and a two-dollar bill will get him a Swan lager at the Sail & Anchor saloon when the serious 12-meter sailing starts.

Newport was never so kind to Conner. He and Dickson agreed that the spectator fleet was a factor in the comfortable final margin, if not the result. Conner led by only 18 seconds until near the end of the third upwind leg, when he suddenly moved out to a 41-second lead at the mark.

“We were able to force Chris into a disadvantage with the spectator wash,” Conner said.

Dickson, 25, had his own fans, some 2,000 strong, lining the jetty entrance to the New Zealand shoreside compound out at the end of Challenge Harbour. They cheered when he left and they cheered when he returned.

“It does make a big difference,” Dickson said. “But I wondered if somebody forgot to tell them we’d got beaten today.”

Conner, apparently not wanting to overplay his hand, insisted that there was little difference between the boats, but Sail America president Malin Burnham said that “straight boat speed” was responsible for the outcome. “We’ve improved our speed and they haven’t,” he said.

Burnham also noted that New Zealand was building its legal forces for a possible protest battle with the Australian defender but might have ignored boat development.

“They haven’t quite figured out the scheme yet,” Burnham said. “You gotta be fast in the finals.”

The Kiwis’ only other defeat was also to Conner, in October, by 41 seconds, but Dickson didn’t think they had been shaken too severely to bounce back today, especially if the winds lighten up.

“Obviously, Stars & Stripes is very quick in that stuff,” Dickson said. “But we can match them in any condition. We didn’t feel there was any major difference out there today.

“In any wind range, we’re very confident that KZ7 is a very quick boat. I’m not sure if Stars & Stripes is as fast in 14 to 20 knots in relation as she might be in 23 to 26.”

Dickson may find out soon. The winds were forecast for 15 to 20 knots today.

It’s possible, though, that Dickson is counting on a myth. Until Tuesday, Conner’s own camp was pumping out propaganda that his blue, boomerang-shaped boat couldn’t maneuver as well as Dickson’s, but there seems to be little difference now.

“(Our tacking) improved when we added to the (keel) wings,” Conner said.

And in the semifinals, it seems to have been overlooked, Conner sailed away from a baffled Tom Blackaller aboard USA and won by 3 minutes 2 seconds--after jumping the line and starting 18 seconds late.

Another small improvement may be coming from a complete new inventory of headsails made in Fremantle.

They flew one new genoa for the first time on the first two upwind legs Tuesday. It worked fine.

And plastic “riblets”?

Dickson didn’t seem to take Conner’s latest hull modification seriously when he preempted Stars & Stripes’ announcement this week, but it was something else for him to think about.

Burnham said the transparent plastic sheets applied to the hull before the semifinals were “definitely a plus.” But, more important, Conner’s confidence in his boat is growing, and that’s when he’s at his best.

John Bertrand, Conner’s Australian adversary from ‘83, wrote of Conner in the Perth Daily News Tuesday:

“His vulnerability is that if he doesn’t believe he has a speed advantage over the opposition, he can panic. He has to be believe his equipment is supreme. If he begins to doubt that, he can be cracked, as we proved with Australia II in Newport.”

But Dickson will have to seize that initiative soon. It’s unlikely that Conner would blow another two-race edge, as he did against Bertrand’s Australia II when he went from 3-1 up to 3-4 and out.

Conner is already one up.

Tuesday, as expected, the boats tentatively avoided each other before the start and went off separate ends of the line, Conner to the right. When they met on opposite tacks six minutes later, Conner had starboard rights, and Dickson took his stern 1 1/2 lengths behind.

But the next time they met, Conner failed to cross Dickson on port tack, instead flopping over on KZ7’s lee bow.

“It would have been too close to go across with a clear margin, particularly at that point in the race,” Conner said.

But he at least forced Dickson to tack away for clear air and a few minutes later crossed him easily on port to take the lead for good.

Isler said Conner never even peeked under the mainsail to make sure they would cross the Kiwis safely.

“Dennis just stands up there steering and listens to the calls,” Isler said. “If we (Isler and tactician Tom Whidden) think he needs to come down and look, he has a really good eye. But if we think we can make it, he trusts us.”

For the first time, such visual insights into the sailing game are being revealed by the new technology of gyroscope-mounted television cameras and boat-mounted race cameras, similar to those used in auto racing. The event is being telecast live world-wide.

Stars & Stripes carried a race cam for the first time Tuesday, and at one point when commentator Bertrand noted how calmly Conner was steering the boat, viewers in the know could see that it was actually Whidden at the helm. Whidden often relieves Conner on the downwind legs.

“When we come close to the mark, Tom knows the camera is on, so he says, ‘Dennis, why don’t you take a rest?’ ” Conner said.

Heck, who’s tired?

America’s Cup Notes Stars & Stripes was ordered into a spot-check flotation test after Tuesday’s victory and syndicate officials insisted that New Zealand’s KZ7 also be checked, even though KZ7 had lost. “If they’re gonna throw us out, we can’t let a boat that might be illegal win without being checked,” Malin Burnham, syndicate president, said. Both boats passed, although Stars & Stripes barely floated to its legal lines, meaning the ballast was right at the maximum.