Kookaburra Throws Caution to the Wind and Decides to Race

Wind or no wind, the racing went on in the America’s Cup today (Monday), much to Dennis Conner’s delight.

Kookaburra III, although down 2-0 in the America’s Cup best-of-seven finals, not only decided against taking a lay day after Sunday’s 1-minute, 10-second loss to Stars & Stripes but stepped out of character when it decided not to follow through on a protest after the race.

Kookaburra officials reasoned that they would not win the protest, anyway, and that the winds would be more favorable to them today than Saturday’s erratic zephyrs or Sunday’s knockout blows.

“We’re happy because it’s gonna be worse Tuesday,” Stars & Stripes tactician Tom Whidden said. “We don’t want to see (wind) under 10 (knots).”

Rival camps cannot call lay days two days in a row, so now Stars & Stripes has the option of using its on Tuesday when, according to its own weather experts and the Bureau of Meteorology in Perth, conditions should be ideally light for Kookaburra III and terrible for Stars & Stripes.

Asked about the decision, Kookaburra skipper Iain Murray said: “I guess it depends on which weather forecast you listen to.”

The Perth weather people said that rather than brisk southwest sea breezes today, there would be easterlies of 10 to 15 knots, which is about how it was Saturday when Stars & Stripes won by 1:41.

Stars & Stripes meteorologist Chris Bedford looked for winds of 10 to 15, dying to 8 to 14--dangerously marginal for the boat, which wallowed badly when the wind dropped below 10 knots twice in Saturday’s race.

Tuesday, the official call is for only 3 to 8 knots in the afternoon when the racing starts. Bedford says 8 to 12, with the chance of a sea breeze coming in late at 10 to 14.

Apparently, Murray is getting different information.

The Kookaburra weatherman is Dr. Peter Rye, a professor of meteorology at the West Australia Institute of Technology.

Bedford, 22, is a recent meteorology graduate of the University of Michigan.

“I forecast better than any professor I ever had,” Bedford said.

Tuesday will tell.

The Kookaburra’s other decision was influenced by syndicate boss Kevin Parry, who may be concerned about image.

The syndicate took a lot of criticism during the defender trials for trying--sometimes successfully--to win races in the protest room that it had not won on the water, and Parry was criticized for attacking rival Alan Bond, who had needled him as the new defender of the Cup: “We won it, don’t you lose it.”

Whidden said that in Sunday’s pre-start maneuvers, “they threatened to protest about four times,” and did unfurl their red protest flag when Stars & Stripes jibed close on their bow while leading them around the Japanese motor yacht Bengal I.

But, on the way back to the harbor afterward, Kookaburra’s British rules expert, Brian Willis, informed Stars & Stripes staff member Robert Hopkins by radio that no protest would be lodged.

“He just said they didn’t have enough evidence and told us we did a ‘smashing job,’ ” Hopkins said.

But Peter Gilmour, KIII’s starting helmsman, indicated the decision was not made until consulting with Parry.

“Once we got back to the dock and discussed it at length with Kevin Parry, we feel that it’s best to get along without any protests and let the races stand on the water,” Gilmour said.

Murray said Parry felt that “if we didn’t have enough evidence, there was no sense in wasting everybody’s time.”

Whidden said the Kookaburras “showed a lot of fiber and good sportsmanship.”

Australians, generally embarrassed by the worldwide exposure of the Kookaburras’ antics earlier, also seemed to cheer the decision.

They hoped the Kookaburras were right about the weather, too.

Peter Isler, the Stars & Stripes navigator who has a degree in meteorology from Yale, said that what makes the weather tricky to forecast in West Australia is that “there are absolutely no (weather) stations out to the west, except for satellite stuff and a ship that might call in.”

So the America’s Cup syndicates here have had to rely as much on past weather patterns as daily observations.

Contrary to popular belief, the “Fremantle Doctor” does not blow every day, and he is not expected to show up the next two days after knocking the door down Sunday.

Instead, Isler said, it will be “one day of strong easterlies--strong enough to keep the Doctor away--and then a day of late easterlies.”

Bedford guessed wrong in November when Stars & Stripes was set up for strong winds that never blew and lost four races. He spent the next couple of weeks avoiding Conner, but he has been nearly infallible since then.

The weather changes so quickly that it is important for the crews to know what is going to happen over the three- or four-hour span of the race so they can put up the proper mainsail. It takes too long to change it--about 10 minutes--once the race is under way.

Headsails and spinnakers can be switched without losing a beat.

Before Sunday’s race, Stars & Stripes had three different mains up before settling on one that turned out to be perfect for the winds that were 22 knots at the start and built to 28 by the finish.

A sea breeze was already blowing hard when the boats left the harbor at 10 o’clock Sunday morning, kicking up a high sea that tested men and equipment. Twelve-meters are no joy to sail in any weather and rapidly lose their appeal when water pours over the open decks and into the holds.

After the incident near Bengal I, with 1 1/2 minutes remaining before the gun as they neared the line, Conner had worked his boat underneath KIII, but 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.

“Forget the protests,” Isler said. “Peter Gilmour did a really good job.”

KIII was almost a length in front as both boats sailed off on a long starboard tack almost to the lay line, but Stars & Stripes was sailing almost imperceptibly closer to the wind and faster.

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.

“We had only two minutes to go to the layline when they finally tacked away,” Isler said. “Otherwise, they could have carried us all the way to the layline, then (tacked and) led us into the first mark.”

Said Whidden: “We lulled them into thinking they were hanging there pretty good. It’s hard for the tactician to judge the other boat when he’s sitting down there (to see around the headsail) getting water in the face. I don’t like to sit down there.”

Conner tacked to cover 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 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 advantage we hoped to have downwind hasn’t materialized,” Murray said.

Overall, the boats were even on the off-wind legs Sunday, while Stars & Stripes powered out all but two seconds of its winning margin on the upwind beats.

The only reason the margin was not greater is that Conner eased his trim on the last two beats to save strain on the boat and cautiously dropped his spinnaker well before the end of the runs.

“That last takedown was a little ridiculous,” Whidden said. “What were we--a half-mile from the mark?”

A few hundred yards from the finish line, the crew members were taking pictures of one another.

Conner was unusually subdued at the post-race press conference.

“We have two tough races to win,” he said. “Until then I’ll be reserved.”

Whidden: “We got the wind we wanted and it made us look smart.”

Murray: “We felt we were going as fast into the wind as we ever have in these conditions, but our improvements haven’t been quite enough.”

Whidden expected the Kookaburras to attack today--literally.

“If I were him I wouldn’t feel desperate but I would feel like I had to force the action,” Whidden said. “Maybe tomorrow (Monday) they’ll be extremely aggressive. You can take shots when you have a chance of losing a protest but also have a chance of winning.”

Isler said that with all of the well-wishers and media crush building up, the most difficult part of the day for the crew has been on shore.