AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : Skippers Shift Gears for Worlds : Tactics: From start to finish, the fleet racing in the IACC World Championship demands a different strategy.

In a challenger trials race at Fremantle, Australia, in 1986, Dennis Conner sailed his 12-meter Stars & Stripes toward the finish line with a slight lead over the late Tom Blackaller on USA.

But Conner was at a disadvantage. He was on port tack (the wind coming over the port, or left, side of his boat) while Blackaller was on starboard tack, giving him the right of way when they crossed courses. Conner would have to duck behind Blackaller and probably lose the race--or take a chance at crossing in front of him and suffering a collision, for which Conner would be disqualified.

Conner’s tactician, Tom Whidden, recalled the moment.

“I said, ‘I think we’ll cross him but you’d better come down (to the low, leeward side of the boom) and look.’ And that’s he did.”

Conner looked, agreed, cleared Blackaller’s bow by about five feet and sailed on to win.

Five years later, different boats in different conditions on different courses might call for different tactics.

The new International America’s Cup Class boats that will debut today in a practice race for the IACC World Championship move faster and accelerate quicker than a 12-meter.

“You may have to think ahead more on some of the crew maneuvers,” Whidden said. “Maybe the boat will bail you out of a situation where a 12-meter would have left you in trouble. With a 12-meter, if you ever got it slowed down, you could just be sitting there dead in the water.”

Also, all of the finishes will be downwind instead of upwind, when it’s more difficult to pass.

“That changes it a lot,” Whidden said. “Before, a key goal was to stay on the inside of a guy at the (leeward or downwind) mark. Now (on the finishing leg) you don’t have to stay on the inside, just ahead of him.

“Other than that, it’s going to make it exciting, because downwind, particularly with these boats, is going to be a very exciting point of sail. I think it’s harder for a boat ahead to hold a boat back.”

The worlds will be run as fleet races until the semifinals and finals May 10-11, when they will switch to match racing, as in the America’s Cup. A tactician must change gears.

Gary Jobson, who was Ted Turner’s tactician aboard the victorious Courageous in 1977, will be sailing one of the America-3 boats.

“In fleet racing you can get away with a little slower boat with a good start and one (favorable) wind shift,” Jobson said. “In a match race there’s no place to run and hide. You’re not concerned where the wind is. You just want to follow where the other guy goes, and if you’re ahead you just cover.

“In a fleet race you go for the new wind, and it’s a very loose cover with the competition. You try not to get in a skirmish. These boats have a gigantic wind shadow because of the big main (sail)--three boat lengths--more than a maxi, more than a 12. You want to stay away from other boats.”

Upwind, the boats carry about 3,000 square feet of sail. Downwind, with spinnakers billowing, they fly 7,000 square feet.

The starting procedure is totally different in the two forms of racing. Fleet racers need to be at the line at the gun. Match racers don’t care, as long as they get there before the opponent.

“In a fleet race, all you’re trying to do is to get to the favored end of the line with the best speed you can,” Whidden said. “We try to figure out where we want to be a little ways up the beat and make the start to facilitate that.”

Often a boat would like to get to the other side of the course for stronger wind or to catch an anticipated wind shift but other boats have it blocked, or “pinned.”

Whidden: “It’s one thing to have the perfect start, but if you can’t get to where you want to be on the race course because of it, then it doesn’t work out.”

Whidden, the president of North Sails, is a world-class helmsman in his own right but has served as Conner’s tactician since 1980, when they won the Cup on Freedom.

For starts, he said, “I talk to him a lot, but he’s pretty good at starting. Mostly what I’m giving him is information that he can use or not use, as he sees fit, to help him with his timing. I’m thinking more of the grand scheme and he’s thinking more of just getting the good start.

“When you’re racing only one boat, there’s only one thing to do all the time. It doesn’t matter which side of the course is favored. You’ve gotta stay with your dude, and you’ve gotta stay between him and the (next) mark.

“When you’ve got more than one boat, you have to be more concerned with what side of the race course is favored and where the boats are that are closest to you (for the lead). If one of them goes one way and one goes the other way, you have to be more strong in your convictions about what’s right to do in the race in general.”

Match racing tends to bring out a sailor’s aggressions.

The same basic sailing rules apply in both types of racing, but match racers are more inclined to use the rules to win. Who has the right of way is always of paramount concern.

“The other boat is always trying to gain an advantage against you,” Whidden said. “One way is to use the rules.

“In a match race, you’re always thinking about how you’re gonna stay ahead of the other guy and screw him up. In a fleet race you don’t think about those things much unless later on if it comes down to a two- or three-boat race.”

But aggressions might be restrained for now. The new carbon-fiber boats cost about $2 1/2 million each, four or five times the price of a 12-meter.

“Nobody wants to hurt the boats,” Jobson said. “I think you’ll see some very cautious tactics, because if you have a collision you’ll be out of action.

“It’s not like aluminum (12-meters) where you could bounce off each other and patch it up or pound it out.”

Tactics must be more flexible in a match race.

“You go out there with a game plan but it’s quickly amended when you see what the other guy’s doing,” Whidden said. “In a fleet race you’re less apt to react to the other boats immediately.”

Match racing is harder on a crew physically, Whidden said, because of “more tacking (changing direction upwind) and jibing (changing direction downwind) for tactical positioning against one boat. You’d be less apt to do that against a whole fleet.”

Tacticians also might have to work harder at San Diego than they did at Fremantle, where most races were settled by the first mark. At San Diego, the lighter, shifting winds can wipe out a lead in a moment.

But the tacticians will have help. Each boat’s afterguard--the brain trust in the back--also has a navigator, but not to keep them from getting lost. They can usually see the next mark, which is an eight-foot, bright orange inflatable buoy.

The only concern might be fog, and Jobson said, “We might have one day of fog out here the whole four months (in ‘92).”

Instead, aboard the new Stars & Stripes, John Bertrand and/or Lexi Gahagan probably will fill the role Peter Isler played for Conner in ‘86-87. They will talk to Whidden, who will talk to Conner.

Whidden said, “What I like to know is where we are on the race course (in relation to the next mark), how we’re doing against the other boat in boat speed, how far we are from the layline, if the wind shifts are changing and what the trend of it is . . . whether it’s a trend in one direction or whether oscillating back and forth, and what’s the timing of those shifts.

“And the other thing the navigator can help with is how our performance is doing against other performances we’ve had in that same amount of wind when we’ve done well--whether we’re sailing to our potential.”

The sailors call those “targets.” Bertrand and Gahagan will be assisted by electronic sensors and other gadgets, but they won’t have much time to enjoy the scenery.

One man could try to do it all but at this level of competition would be destined to fail. Nobody sails these boats by the seat of his pants.

“It’s possible,” Whidden said, “but one of the strengths that Dennis and I have is having so much trust. We’re both helmsmen. We both like steering boats. But there’s plenty for two people to do.

“I wouldn’t say we ever disagree, but every once in a while when I’ll make a suggestion he’ll say, ‘OK, why?’ and then we’ll discuss it.