AMERICA’S CUP NOTEBOOK / RICH ROBERTS : Koch Taps Skippers for Syndicate Boats

While minimizing the role of the helmsman, Bill Koch on Thursday nominated the two most prominent helmsmen in his America 3 camp--Buddy Melges and himself--as skippers of his two boats in the first round of the America’s Cup defender trials against Dennis Conner’s lone Stars & Stripes starting next Tuesday.

In another announcement of no surprise, Koch confirmed that he had a fourth boat under construction at Eric Goetz Custom Sailboats in Rhode Island, where his second boat, Defiant, was built and his third also is being assembled.

The first, Jayhawk, was built at Hercules Aerospace in Utah. In a small surprise, that’s the one Koch will sail in the first round. That’s also the one that has lost two masts and finished tied for seventh in the International America’s Cup Class World championships last May.

Defiant didn’t fare much better--sixth--but generally has been the faster of the two boats.

Otherwise, Koch took pains to divide his crew between the boats as equally as possible, listing 16 positions for Defiant, 17 for Jayhawk, including an alternate, and five general alternates.

“Our belief is that any combination of these 38 men and women can go out and win,” Koch said.

The woman is Dawn Riley, assigned to the pit on Defiant--a job more important than its title might suggest. She handles the changing of sails, including running them up and down.

Riley, 27, from Detroit, is 5 feet 6 and 160 pounds and the only woman on any crew in this Cup. She was engineer and watch captain on Maiden, the only all-woman crew in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race.

Koch’s tactician will be Andreas Josenhans, his navigator Bill Campbell. Melges will have Dave Dellenbaugh and By Baldridge, respectively.

The assignments probably will be shuffled for the second round in February, when the slower of the current two boats--probably Jayhawk--will be replaced by the third boat, and again in late March when the fourth boat moves into the mix.

That assumes the new boats will be faster. If they aren’t, America 3 is in big trouble, despite its big budget, which Koch restated Thursday as $45 million, including $30 million from his deep pockets.

Koch said each new boat will cost $5 million, “fully outfitted” off the showroom floor, and computer projections tell him they will be worthwhile investments.

“Our stated goal is to have two boats in the (defender) finals,” he said.

Koch said his new boats won’t be as radical as New Zealand’s new boat, whose first loss was to its older stablemate Thursday in the challenger practice series.

“They’re counting on being exceptionally fast downwind,” Koch said of the Kiwis. “We’re going in another direction. We feel boats (Nos.) 3 and 4 will be good in a variety of conditions.”

If Koch has his way, those boats also will be the last IACC boats ever built. He would prefer smaller, less expensive boats that more syndicates could afford.

“These boats are spectacular to sail but extremely fragile and extremely expensive,” Koch said. “They’re very bad for the class. I think they’ll go the way of the J-class (of the ‘30s).”

New Zealand continued to dominate the challengers’ practice races with a 1-2 finish ahead of the French on Thursday--but with Russell Coutts and the backup boat finishing 1 1/2 minutes ahead of Rod Davis with the new boat.

Coutts, the third-ranked match racer in the world behind Davis and top-ranked Chris Dickson of Nippon Challenge, was making his first appearance in the weeklong series after being out with the flu.

He led all the way and, with steady winds of about 12 knots, the six-boat fleet was able to complete the 22.6-nautical mile, eight-legged Cup course for the first time in four races.

Spain and Australia’s Syd Fischer followed France, and Dickson dropped out with Nippon’s new boat while running at the back of the fleet.

They’ll have today off and wrap up the unofficial series Saturday and Sunday.

Iain Murray’s Spirit of Australia remained in the yard for $20,000 worth of surgery Thursday after Wednesday’s collision with France’s older boat.

The French, who crashed into Spirit’s stern, apologized and offered to pay the bill. Murray, short of funds and lacking collision coverage, accepted.

Murray decided on drastic treatment: amputation.

“We made the decision to shorten the boat by a foot,” spokesman Dave Kellett said. “We were able to grind the damage down. That will put us back on the water sooner.

“We were lucky. The chainplate that holds the (running backstays) was slightly damaged but we were able to repair it.”

Shortening the boat might even make Spirit faster. Under the IACC rule, Murray can now add sail area.

Maybe some other boats will go looking for the French.