AMERICA’S CUP NOTEBOOK : Worlds to Satisfy Curiosity of Many

The new International America’s Cup Class sailboats will race formally for the first time off San Diego today, and observers are cautioned not to take the results too seriously.

Or too casually.

Nine boats from six countries are entered in the event billed as the Pre-Worlds Regatta, which is as relevant to the America’s Cup as an NFL exhibition game is to the Super Bowl. The real IACC World Championship starts Saturday, with five days of fleet racing followed by semifinal and final match racing among the top four boats May 10-11.

That won’t mean much more, since several syndicates planning to compete for the Cup starting next January don’t have boats yet, and the strongest players won’t even be sailing the same boats they’ll sail in ’92. But these 11 days will offer some clues as to which teams are on the right track.

If it were a beauty contest, even most of his rivals would declare Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes the winner, with its midnight-blue hull and gold-leaf graphics.

But is it fast? Who’s hot? Who’s not?

Bruce Nelson, one of Conner’s designers, spoke for his colleagues when he said, “We’re going to be keenly interested to see what shakes out there.”

All anyone knows with reasonable certainty about the new boats is that they’re faster than the smaller but heavier 12-meters that sailed every Cup from 1958 to ’87.

The designers, with San Diego’s light-to-moderate winds in mind, agreed to three maximum dimensions for the new boats: a mast height of 32.5 meters (106 feet, 7 1/2 inches), a beam (width) of 5.5 meters (18 feet, 1/2 inch) and a draft (keel depth) of 4 meters (13 feet, 1 1/2 inches). Any boat not built to those maximums would be sacrificing performance.

Beyond that, they can balance variations in sail area, ballast and boat length within the IACC formula--the explanation of which requires a rocket scientist.

For example, everybody refers to the boats as being 75 feet long overall. But are they?

Nelson said, “I wish I knew the answer to that. That is highly proprietary and desirable information. Everybody says their boat is 75 feet, but probably nobody’s is actually 75 feet.”

Ordinarily, length means speed, but not necessarily if it means sacrificing sail area or ballast. So the designers need to know now what the best combination is.

Racing today and Thursday starts at 12:30 p.m. There will be two two-lap races today around a simple windward-leeward (upwind-downwind) course, then one longer race Thursday around the new Cup course that includes a Z-leg downwind.

All of the races will finish downwind, under spinnakers.

The new boats carry maximum crews of 16, plus an owner’s representative. The 12-meters had only 11, but Conner has said the new boats “need all 16 people to get the sails up and down.

“There’s a different technique in jibing the reacher (sail) or gennaker or whatever it’s called (because) the pole sits out so far in front of the headstay, and getting it down with the relatively small number of people will be interesting if you have any kind of a problem. That’s about the only time on a maxi boat where you were able to use all 30 people--taking a sail down--and there’s a long way between 16 and 30.”

But there’s more to winning an America’s Cup than that. Nippon Challenge skipper Chris Dickson is only 29 but qualifies as an expert because of his performance for New Zealand in ‘86-87 and his subsequent rise to the ranking as the world’s top match-racing sailor.

“Winning an America’s Cup match race requires a lot of different elements,” Dickson says. “The boats are designed by their own teams, built by their own teams. All the boats are built to the same rule, but there are subtle differences in the lengths, the sail area, how heavy they are.

“So winning requires the best designed boats, the best built boats, the best maintained boats, the best sails, the best management, and, at the end of the day, the best sailing team on the water to put in the best crew work and the best tactics to sail the boat to its full potential. Whoever has the best blend of all of those items is probably going to come out on top.”

And, at this point, who is willing to pick a winner--at least for the worlds? Buddy Melges, the wizard of Zenda, Wis., is.

“In pure boat speed, I like the Japanese,” said Melges, one of America-3’s all-star helmsmen.

Then come Stars & Stripes, New Zealand and Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia.

Melges, 61, has been sailing since sails were made of cotton. He sailed Heart of America for the Chicago Yacht Club in ‘86-87. Team members have been tentative about “checking in” with each other because they don’t want to show any secrets, but America-3, which got its own boat only last week, had been training on French-built boat USA-2 and had nothing to hide. America-3 was willing to be anybody’s playmate.

With those close-up looks and his educated eye, Melges was able to form some assessments.

“We were alongside Dennis (Conner) a couple of times,” Melges said. “He’s faster than USA-2. But so is everybody else.

“The USA-2 has just been a gymnasium for us. We’re trying to do some things now to upspeed it for the worlds, which she definitely needs. Dennis has good speed. I like Dennis’ speed. That’s a pretty nice-looking boat in the water. He was out there with an old jib on. He’s got a new main and an old jib. If he gets his front sails working and stuff like that, he’ll just be fine.

“I love his spar (mast). My buddy Tom Omohundro put that together up in Costa Mesa. It’s the cleanest spar out there. Everybody else, the spars look real busy--pigeon roosts.

“Dennis is in the hunt very nicely with the Kiwis, (who) sail their boats very close to the wind, in my observation.

“I think (Paul) Cayard’s (Il Moro) group is gonna be tough. You could flip a coin for second place (among) the USA boat number 11 (Stars & Stripes) and the Kiwis and the Italians.”

There was a report of an informal race one day last week among Il Moro, the two Nippon boats and Spain, sailing its borrowed New Zealand boat. Cayard, sailing Il Moro’s older boat, ITA-1, is said to have won, perhaps refuting the notion that the boat was slow. That notion has lingered since a series of races with USA-2 in Europe last year before the French sold it.

Is it valid? Certainly, Il Moro’s newest boat, ITA-15, should be faster eventually, but the Italians probably haven’t had time to get it up to speed since it was rushed into action when ITA-7’s mast fell down two weeks ago.

But why does Melges like Nippon? Is this a psych job on Dickson?

“That’s seat of the pants,” Melges said. “We haven’t seen enough, but I liked what I saw . . . just looking at ‘em going through the water. I saw him when they had a four-boat hookup and they looked the nicest of all the boats. A couple of Kiwi boats were around, Dennis was around.

“Dickson, the trim of his boat, the trim of his sails looked to be a little nicer. Some of those things you can’t put your finger on. The boat just looked like it was hooked, while the rest of ‘em were sort of bobbin’ and weavin’.”

Melges and New Zealand skipper David Barnes both noted that the Kiwis have spent most of their time tuning and speed testing, rather than drilling the crew in race maneuvers. But the Kiwis dominated ITA-1 in some short races last week.

Obviously, there is considerable confusion. Maybe there will be less after the next few days.

Peter de Savary will be among those attending the worlds as a spectator. The head of Britain’s Port Pendennis Challenge doesn’t like the way the Cup has gone since he last competed in ’83.

“I’ve no problems with the Cup being geared to make money,” de Savary was quoted in the London Daily Telegraph, “but you should not do that by hijacking the America’s Cup.

“It is a pure and simple competition between gentlemen in the spirit of old-fashioned dueling. Others have decided to turn it into a mammoth commercial event. The San Diego (Yacht Club is) ruining it.”

Boeing has joined John Marshall’s Partnership for America’s Cup Technology to help develop basic technology in keel and rudder design with wind tunnel tests.

PACT is working for the two defense syndicates, which probably will build additional boats before ’92.

Case of the Missing Keel: There still is talk around San Diego about one of the highly secret keels being delivered to the wrong compound.

Apparently, the truck carrying the keel for America-3’s new boat first went to Conner’s Stars & Stripes base on lower San Diego Bay, where team members passed up the chance to peek and politely directed the driver to his proper destination.

However, team members did not pass up the chance to inscribe some cryptic messages on the wrapping.

IACC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP LINEUP

Handicapped by Rich Roberts of the Times. Sail numbers indicate order in which boats were built. No.: 1. Boat: New Zealand Sail No.: NZL-12 Skipper(s): David Barnes, Rod Davis, Russell Coutts Comment: Proven skippers and crew, and they have had ample time to get the boat up to speed No.: 2. Boat: Nippon Challenge Sail No.: JP-6 Skipper(s): Chris Dickson Comment: After two years of training, this is a major test for the world’s top match-racing skipper with his Japanese crew. The boat is a first-generation IACC but should be tuned better than some later models. No.: 3. Boat: Stars & Stripes Sail No.: USA-11 Skipper(s): Dennis Conner Comment: Conner is equally skilled at fleet or match racing and has the nucleus of his regularAmerica’s Cup crew. The boat has been sailing less than a month but seems to have come together quickly. No.: 4. Boat: Il Moro di Venezia Sail No.: ITA-15 Skipper(s): Paul Cayard Comment: The Italians’ newest boat might not be ready yet, but the skipper and crew are. No.: 5. Boat: Il Moro di Venezia Sail No.: ITA-1 Skipper(s): John Kolius Comment: This is the backup boat, and it’s as fast as it’s goingto get. Cayard and Kolius might alternate between the two. No.: 6. Boat: America-3 Sail No.: USA-9 Skipper(s): Bill Koch Comment: The boat was secretly built at Hercules Aerospace in Utah but is fresh off the truck. The crew is highly skilled and trained but will be split with the second entry. No.: 7. Boat: Ville de Paris Sail No.: FRA-8 Skipper(s): Marc Pajot Comment: The French have had their boat for only a week and have had an off-and-on training program since selling their first boat to America-3. They could become more competitive through the event. No.: 8. Boat: America-3 Sail No.: USA-2 Skipper(s): Gary Jobson Comment: The boat, used more as a training platform, probably hasn’t improved much sinceFrench owned it, but it was reasonably fast then. Could do well in tactical fleet racing. No.: 9. Boat: Spain ‘92/Quinto Centenario Sail No.: ESP-10 Skipper(s): Pedro Campos, Antonio Gorostegui Comment: The crew has trained on its own boat in Europe and has very limited time on this one, which it borrowed from New Zealand.