Stars & Stripes Leading Aussies in Second Race as the Breezes Pick Up

In a race protested before it even began, Stars & Stripes was on the last leg of the second race of the America’s Cup finals with a comfortable lead over Kookaburra III here today.

Dennis Conner and his crew led at every mark, entering the last leg with a lead of 1 minute, 8 seconds. If Stars & Stripes survives the protest, it will take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven series.

Unlike Saturday’s tricky light-to-moderate wind conditions, a sea breeze was already blowing hard when the boats left the harbor at 10 this morning, and it kicked up a high sea that tested men and equipment.

At the start, the wind was blowing at 22 to 23 knots from the southwest, with gusts to 25 knots, as water poured over the 12-meters’ decks and into the holds.

Six and a half minutes before the gun, Conner led Kookaburra III around the bow of Bengal I, the blue Japanese motor yacht owned by the Nippon industrialist who bought Alan Bond’s 12-meter fleet for $7 million last week.

When they came out from the stern, Kookaburra III had a protest flag flying, the reason for which would be explained if the protest is followed through tonight.

With 1 1/2 minutes remaining as they neared the line, Conner had worked his boat underneath KIII, but starting helmsman Peter Gilmour was willing to go right on across, circle the committee boat and come back strong to start three seconds ahead of Conner, who had jibed toward his favorite left side.

Both boats sailed off on a long starboard tack almost to the lay hine, but after 15 minutes, Conner, working the waves skillfully, had crept up three or four lengths almost directly in front of KIII, which had to tack away to avoid eating the disturbed air from Stars & Stripes’ sails.

Conner soon followed, and, with a smaller headsail, was sailing with more upright stability than KIII. Finally, the first time they crossed, Stars & Stripes had a four-length lead and rounded the first mark 12 seconds in front.

That was close enough for Kooka skipper Iain Murray to attack with his suspected edge: superior downwind speed.

But Conner, in fact, stretched his lead on the run. Sailing cautiously, he raised his jib to prepare for the upwind leg three minutes early and had his spinnaker down well before rounding the America’s Cup buoy 29 seconds on top.

The spectator fleet seemed less a problem than it had been Saturday, thinned out by the uncomfortable conditions. It was no day for Sunday sailors.

Tom Blackaller would do anything for Conner.

If Conner were going down for the third time, Blackaller would be the first to throw him an anchor.

If Conner’s house were burning down, Blackaller would organize a bucket brigade of gasoline.

Tom Blackaller does not like Dennis Conner.

Yet, the San Francisco skipper, whose radical USA 12-meter was blitzed by Conner’s Stars & Stripes, 4-0, in the America’s Cup challenge semifinals, watched Conner use his old mainsail to throttle Australia’s Kookaburra III by 1:41 in the opener of the best-of-seven Cup final Saturday.

It wasn’t at all like anyone expected. The “Fremantle Doctor” was a fraud. After three years of hype about the wet, wild and windy woes of Gage Roads, the guest of honor failed to show.

And on a day of worrying about seaweed and trying to outguess light and shifty winds, the so-called heavy weather, lumbering 12-meter from San Diego floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

It was the kind of racing anticipated if Conner takes the Cup to San Diego for a 1990 defense.

It was so wispy that Stars & Stripes had to use not only two spinnakers borrowed from the departed America II syndicate but also a light-air main offered to them by Blackaller, at a price yet to be negotiated.

But don’t get the idea Blackaller did it for Conner. It was for the good old U.S. of A.

“That was the whole U.S. effort out there,” said Jon Wright, who trims the mainsail on Stars & Stripes. “We hadn’t even tested it. We haven’t even paid for it yet.”

Conner, who has no particular animosity toward Blackaller, joked that they ought to be able to get a good price since his tactician, Tom Whidden, has just become president of North Sails, whose loft Blackaller manages in San Francisco.

“We can now ask for our employee discount,” Conner said.

Be assured that despite the apparent ease of the win, which was Kookaburra III’s most lopsided defeat in four months of racing, Stars & Stripes was just happy to survive conditions it feared and Kookaburra prayed for.

“It was lighter than we expected and shiftier than we expected,” Whidden said. “If it had been any lighter we would have been in trouble because we hadn’t brought enough light-air sails along.”

The wind reached the bottom of Stars & Stripes’ optimum range only briefly at 16 to 18 knots when a squall passed through the course on the third windward leg, and then the San Diego boat was just able to hold its own.

Otherwise, it dipped as low 8 knots on the second windward leg and 10 on the last beat when Kookaburra III picked up 39 and 19 seconds, respectively.

By then, however, Kookaburra III was too far behind to threaten.

Stars & Stripes’ most serious problem was a periodic collection of seaweed on its rudder. Conner recognized the problem from years of sailing in the kelp beds off San Diego.

“I can feel a little vibration on the rudder,” he said.

But navigator Peter Isler also said he regularly checks a small TV screen behind the cockpit.

“There were a lot of weeds today,” Isler said. “I have a TV camera that looks down through a hole in the bottom of the boat at the rudder.”

Murray had more serious concerns.

“From our point of view, it was a frustrating day out there,” he said. “With the breeze shifting around, anything really could have happened. The anxiety level is pretty high when the breeze is like that.”

What saved Stars & Stripes was Conner’s crafty sailing before the start, his afterguard’s keen sense for the wind and--startling to everyone--its speed advantage over Kookaburra III off the wind, where Kookaburra III was thought to be faster but actually lost 1:22 on the day.

John Marshall, the S&S; design team coordinator, said: “For sure, we had better speed than anyone expected in light wind. I thought we’d be very competitive, but I didn’t think we’d be quite that fast in light to medium.

“Off the wind, we had more than I expected to see.”

Murray was plainly confused.

“We all expected that Kooka would have a downwind advantage, but today she seemed to have an upwind advantage,” he said.

“It wasn’t a very fair day. We were often in very much different breeze strengths and directions. To make any judgment, you’d have to let us race in a sea breeze.”