The America’s Cup : Conner Victory Hits a New Low, the Kiwis Claim : Stars & Stripes Sails Away to 18-Minute 15-Second Win

How do the Kiwis hate Dennis Conner?

Let us count the ways.

Nearly two years ago at Fremantle, he suggested that the upstarts from New Zealand built a 12-meter sailboat out of fiberglass because they were trying to cheat.

A couple of months later, he burst their bubble in the America’s Cup challenge final, 4-1.

But they thought Wednesday was the worst, the way he toyed with them with his Stars & Stripes catamaran and rubbed their noses in the trouble they caused by forcing this acrimonious defense.

To listen to the Kiwis tell it, Conner sailed the worst race of his life--and still won by 18 minutes 15 seconds.

“If I was in his boat I would have won by an hour,” said Bruce Farr, who designed Michael Fay’s magnificent 133-foot monohull. “I would have sailed it like a sailor. He was working very hard--to sail slow.”

Skipper David Barnes added at the post-race press conference: “We didn’t feel that Stars & Stripes was going anywhere near its potential. We felt that they just paced us around the course.

“If that is the best that Dennis can do, then it’s a disappointment for him to be defending in the America’s Cup.”

Conner barely blinked.

“I guess when (Barnes has) won four America’s Cups he can tell me how to do it,” he said.

And a question from the floor: “Dennis, were you dogging it?”

Conner: “I’m sailing a cat. Somebody else is sailing a dog.”

Oooh!

As was often the case at Fremantle, the press conferences are more interesting than the racing.

Rival syndicate heads Fay and Malin Burnham were scheduled to duel publicly this morning, no doubt pursuing the issue of whether Stars & Stripes is trying to make the races close to weaken Fay’s case when he goes back to court against the catamaran.

There isn’t much time left to thrash these things out. Stars & Stripes should wrap up the best-of-three series in a 39-mile race around a triangular course Friday, an event as attractive as a Tyson-Spinks rematch.

Certainly Wednesday’s race--20 miles to windward and back in light winds--didn’t bring on cardiac arrest.

Half the people on the press boat were asleep--literally, asleep--by the time Conner’s blue-hulled, 60-foot cat turned the mark 9:04 in front, while ESPN was dredging up features from the depths of its tape library to fill out the dead spots in its--excuse the expression-- live television coverage.

Stars & Stripes finished in 4 hours 53 minutes 54 seconds--truly the agony of victory.

New Zealand trailed in 5:12:09, a hazy illusion about 2 1/2 miles astern.

For a while, early in the race, dolphins played alongside the big white boat, a good-luck omen for the crew of 35, including Fay himself.

But it became so lopsided that even Flipper and friends jumped ship, picking up the catamaran farther up the course.

Windward on Wednesday was due south, taking the boats past the Coronado Islands and five miles into Mexican waters, appropriately time for a siesta. It was the first time, organizers said, that an America’s Cup race had crossed an international border.

As the sun broke through the overcast, the wind was 7 knots at the start, dropping to 6 out to sea and freshening to 9 near the finish. Because light air was anticipated, Stars & Stripes had elected that morning to sail with its taller, 108-foot airfoil rig but mated it with a very small headsail--the first tip that tactics would be conservative.

The two boats hardly engaged before the start, and at the gun Stars & Stripes was 10 seconds farther off the line but at the upwind end and no worse than even with the Kiwis.

Six minutes after the start, as Stars & Stripes took command, Barnes initiated a tacking match, flopping his big boat 15 times in 20 minutes. Unlike conventional catamarans, Stars & Stripes was able to respond, tack for tack, without losing ground.

But it also was evident that the cat wasn’t stretching its very long legs.

In tuning, it had shown it can lift one hull out of the water--the fastest mode of sailing for a multihull--in only 7 knots of breeze. But both hulls, as Farr was to point out, generally remained “buried nicely in the water.”

Farr also noted, “A couple of times (Conner) didn’t cover us when we tacked to take advantage of a lift (favorable wind shift). He sailed off in the header (unfavorable wind shift), then tacked back on the header. It’s probably a pretty nice way to burn off some speed.

“Downwind, they were sailing 10 or 15 degrees higher (toward the wind) than us a lot of the time so they wouldn’t get so far ahead.”

Also, Farr concluded, by sailing his boat too directly into the wind upwind, Conner was deliberately sailing it slower and less efficiently.

As it was, Stars & Stripes averaged 8.17 knots for the race, New Zealand 7.69.

Barnes said, “We sailed our boat to full potential around the course. The guys kept on working the whole way. We picked the wind shifts real well. The boat was sailed as fast around the course as you would ever expect to see it.”

Peter Lester, the New Zealand tactician, said, “We’re just sad that the other boat wasn’t making a good race of it. We would have much more respect for our opposition if they had sailed up to their full potential and we had been beaten by an hour and a half.”

When a reporter asked Conner why he repeatedly luffed his boat up into the wind, slowing it down, Barnes and Farr cracked up.

Conner answered, “You must have been in a different race than I was, because that never happened on board our boat.”

Farr said, “We probably didn’t look like we were sailing high because Dennis was sailing Stars & Stripes substantially higher than where that boat gets its optimum performance, to keep it going slow.

“At least we did put up a big sail downwind, which is more than Stars & Stripes did.”

Lester: “Before I came here I had a lot of respect for the Stars & Stripes organization, and I must say I’m very disappointed. I expected to come here and be treated the courtesy of a race against a boat of similar conception.

“Secondly, to go out on the track and we’re treated like fools . . . We sail around as fast as we can, and we have a boat ahead of us making a mockery of the race. I must say I’ve lost a lot of respect for Stars & Stripes.”

Tom Whidden, Conner’s tactician, said, “I’m a little confused because this is a match race and we’re out there to beat the other boat the best way we know how. I think Dennis sailed a real nice race today.

“We did what you should do in a match race: be conservative, cover as best you can, tack and stay between the other boat and the mark.”

Conner: “I’m thrilled to win the race. I hope we can do as well again on Friday.”

As for New Zealand’s accusations: “I would say that’s typical of the New Zealand attitude toward the whole event.”