SAILING : Conner to Seek Dollars While Others Seek Title

With Dennis Conner in New York pitching for sponsors, the first International America’s Cup Class World Championship officially has been reduced to what most suspected it was all along.

“This, after all, is just a practice regatta,” said Tom Ehman, executive vice president and general manager of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee that is staging the event as a prelude to the Cup defense in 1992.

Conner, sailing his new Stars & Stripes, placed third in the fleet-racing phase to qualify for the semifinals starting today, then withdrew, as he had said he might.

A syndicate spokesman said that Conner had “lists of appointments” in the East starting today and made well before he announced Thursday that he wouldn’t continue in this event.

“We would be placing our boat at a higher risk, which we cannot afford,” Conner said in a statement.

In the four fleet races, the new class has proved as fragile as feared, and Team Dennis Conner owns only one boat, one mast and a limited supply of sails.

“We’re the only one in the top six (of nine competitors here) that doesn’t have multiple boats,” Tom Whidden, Conner’s tactician, said, “and when you get into match racing, you double the stress.”

Conner’s withdrawal will send first-place New Zealand, with David Barnes or Rod Davis steering, against Kiwi expatriate Chris Dickson’s fifth-place Nippon Challenge in today’s second semifinal at 12:30 p.m. Paul Cayard’s second-place Il Moro di Venezia (ITA-15) will go off 15 minutes earlier against his fourth-place backup boat, ITA-1, with sparring partner John Kolius at the helm.

The winners will meet for the title at 1:15 p.m. Saturday.