AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : Conner Puts All of His Eggs in One Boat While Koch Waits to Select His Best Craft

If you can get accustomed to heavyweight title fights without Mike Tyson, or Super Bowls without the Denver Broncos, consider the prospect of an America’s Cup match without Dennis Conner.

The climax of America’s Cup XXVIII will be in May against the best of nine challengers. But to get there, Conner--a finalist in all four Cups since 1980--must succeed as David to Bill Koch’s financial Goliath, the America 3(pronounced America Cubed) syndicate.

Today they will start four rounds of round-robin trials over the next 3 1/2 months--round robin only because Koch has entered two boats to reduce the monotony.

The first-round, nine-race rotation calls for Conner’s midnight blue Stars & Stripes to open against Defiant, the America 3boat skippered by Buddy Melges. Wednesday, Conner will meet Koch aboard Jayhawk, dubbed for his beginnings in Wichita, Kan., but partly the product of his three degrees from MIT.

Defiant and Jayhawk will race Thursday. For the first round, Koch split his available crew evenly and assigned himself to Jayhawk, his older and heretofore slower boat.

“Defiant, before we refitted it, was faster than Jayhawk,” Koch said Monday. “After we refitted it, we’re not sure which is faster.”

But Koch assures that both crews will be trying.

“Our guys are so competitive and Buddy’s so competitive that I don’t think I could get him to lose and I don’t think he could get me to throw a race,” Koch said.

But consider: It’s late April, the trials are a tossup, and the best America 3boat must beat its stablemate to eliminate Conner. What price honor?

“We haven’t thought that far ahead to see if we could play games with the numbers,” Koch said. “But that’s not our style.”

Conner said: “I have enough to worry about without worrying about things that aren’t in my control.”

Koch, 51, has been sailing for only eight years. But he has been making money a lot longer than that, specializing in real estate and alternative energy. According to Forbes magazine, he is worth $650 million, $30 million of which he says he has spent on the America 3program.

About $15 million more has been donated--the equivalent of Conner’s total budget.

“My budget is that I’m going to spend as much as I can raise,” Conner said.

Because the new, 75-foot International America’s Cup Class boats cost about $5 million each, Conner has been able to build only one, although it is a good one. It is thought to be faster than either of Koch’s boats.

But the larger question is whether Conner’s engineers can keep improving it to make it faster than two Koch boats yet to come.

Koch, acknowledging that Conner’s designers produced a fast boat in their first try, said: “We’re trying to get a fast boat in four tries.”

But considering Conner’s skill, cunning and Cup-tested crew, all he might need to be is almost as fast to pull it off. For the first time, he is sailing the event from his hometown, on the rolling waters and in the fickle winds he knows better than anyone else.

It is the first time the Cup competition has been on the West Coast, save for Conner’s acrimonious and aberrational defense with a catamaran against New Zealand’s magnificent monohull in 1988.

And what of New Zealand and Sir Michael Fay and the others who would strip San Diego of the prize Conner reclaimed from the Australians in 1987? Nine of them, from eight nations, are waiting for the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials to start Jan. 25.

The America’s Cup is the only sporting event for which some competitors arrive more than a year in advance, all with one thought: a crack at Dennis Conner.

Would Bill Koch deprive them of that privilege?

He is going to try.

America’s Cup Defenders Syndicate: Team Dennis Conner Budget: $20 million Syndicate head: Dennis Conner Boat name: Stars & Stripes Skipper: Dennis Conner Comment: Conner has sailed more America’s Cup races than anyone, most of those with the core of his battle-hardened crew. That’s his edge. But Conner will have only one boat. That’s his weakness. Relative to the rest of the International America’s Cup Class boats now sailing, his is a fast boat. Probably faster than the America3 boats. Possibly faster than the latest New Zealand, Italian, French and Japanese models.

Syndicate: America3 Budget: $45 million Syndicate head: Bill Koch Boat names, skippers: Defiant with Buddy Melges, Jayhawk with Bill Koch. Comment: Melges, 61, lacks a deep match-racing background but is a smart sailor with a level, competitive temperament and controllable ego. He might have sailed more kinds of boats than anyone. Koch gave him his better boat at least for the first round of trials. There has been considerable skepticism about Koch’s sailing skills. Why he chose to skipper this boat is anyone’s guess.

Getting Underway The defender trials, involving the U.S. syndicates, begin today for the America’s Cup, sport’s oldest international trophy, dating to 1851. There are two defense syndicates--Team Dennis Conner and America-3. Conner will race only one boat; America 3 has entered two boats, which might be replaced by two newer boats in subsequent rounds. All competition is match racing, one boat against another. There will be four round-robin trials before the defender and challenger finals begin April 17, followed by the best-of-seven Cup match beginning May 9, in which the remaining defender and challenger go head to head. Challenger trials, involving as many as 10 syndicates, begin Jan. 25. The boats will be versions of the new International America’s Cup Class. At 75 feet, they are about 10 feet longer than the 12-meter boats used from 1958-87 but have only two-thirds the displacement and about 50% more sail area. Each boat has a maximum crew of 16. Races, which start at 12:15 p.m. daily on a course three miles off Point Loma, take between three hours and 4:45, the race limit. Private spectator boats will be kept a considerable distance from the course, though charters with closer access are available. Live television coverage is scheduled to begin until March 28.

Bases for syndicates: 1. Nippon Challenge 2. Le Defi Francais 3. Swedish Challenge 4. Spirit of Australia 5. Challenge Australian 6. America3 7. Il Moro di Venezia 8. Team Dennis Conner 9. Spanish Challenge 10. New Zealand Challenge