AMERICA’S CUP DAILY REPORT : DEFENDER TRIALS : Conner Masters Fickle Winds and Wins Easily

Bill Koch, a novice at the game, sailed into Dennis Conner Country Wednesday, like Alice going into Wonderland.

Conner won.

The wind piped up. The wind died. The wind rotated more than halfway around the compass, as the race committee scrambled to reset marks. Upwind became downwind, and vice versa.

The seas calmed, the air warmed. And at the end, Conner’s Stars & Stripes beat Koch’s Jayhawk on the second day of America’s Cup defender trials by 4 minutes 10 seconds.

The wind is notoriously fickle off San Diego, but Wednesday’s was ridiculous. Conner always seemed to be in the right spot to benefit most from the persistent shift that started slightly east of north and finished at southwest.

Conner, with Tom Whidden, John Bertrand and Lexi Gahagan in his afterguard, played the wind like a symphony conductor.

The victory left Stars & Stripes with a 1-1 record in the first round of trials, after Tuesday’s loss to Buddy Melges on Defiant, which apparently is America 3 syndicate’s faster boat.

Defiant and Jayhawk will race today. No race is scheduled Friday, and then the rotation restarts Saturday with Conner in a rematch against Melges.

Conner led by 24 seconds at the first mark Wednesday, then stretched out to as much as 5:41 at the next-to-last mark.