Ill Wind Deflates Koch Bid : Sailing: Conner’s Stars & Stripes adapts to change in weather and defeats Jayhawk in the defender trials.

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

The wind piped up. The wind died. The seas calmed, the air warmed. They called the wind Santa Ana, and as it turned more than halfway around the compass, the race committee scrambled to reset marks. Upwind became downwind, and vice versa.

At the end, the wind gods swept their native son and Stars & Stripes to a whopping 4-minute, 10-second victory over Koch’s Jayhawk in the second day of America’s Cup defender trials.

The wind is notoriously fickle off San Diego. Wednesday’s wind was ridiculous, but Conner always seemed to be in the right spot to benefit most from the persistent shift that started at 020 degrees by the compass--slightly east of due north--and finished at 230--southwest--for a total fluctuation of 210 degrees.

Conner, backed by a brain trust of Tom Whidden, John Bertrand and Lexi Gahagan in his afterguard, played the zephyrs like a symphony conductor.

Koch’s tactician, Andreas Josenhans, said, “People around me were saying it was just like being in Perth (in 1986-87). At one point our crew was a little confused. They didn’t know what leg we were on.”

Conner’s tactician, Tom Whidden, said, “We were a little confused ourselves. If you looked around the race course, there were (private) boats heading in nearly every direction possible on the wind (i.e., upwind).”

Whidden said one of best clues they got was watching America 3’s other boat, Defiant, practicing off by itself to the right of the course.

“We could see they had a little better wind, so we went over there,” Whidden said. “They helped us out.”

The race was Koch’s formal introduction to the America’s Cup, in which he has a personal stake of $30 million.

Navigator Bill Campbell steered the boat through a lively pre-start sequence with Conner, during which the two boats circled a large spectator boat like sharks. But after the start, Campbell turned the helm back to Koch, who held it the rest of the race.

“I thought he did a pretty nice job,” Josenhans said. “If I had to give him a grade I’d give him an 80% today.

“He had worked extremely hard at his steering. He’s improved dramatically.”

The victory left Conner at 1-1 in the first round of trials, after Tuesday’s loss to Buddy Melges on Defiant, which would seem to be America 3’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 with Melges.

The wind was blowing at 15 to 18 knots when the race started, promising wet and wild action. But the promise wasn’t kept.

After some maneuvering, Conner and Koch both started on port tack, with Conner to windward, not quite in position to camp on Jayhawk’s wind but close enough to prevent Koch from tacking until Conner tacked first.

For five minutes it appeared they were chained together as they sailed off to the right-hand corner of the course. Finally, as the wind started to shift, Conner broke away well above the layline to the mark.

Koch didn’t tack until a minute and a half later and was far enough in front that when they met Conner couldn’t cross him on port tack, which has no right of way.

But Conner tried again three minutes later and made it, then quickly tacked on Koch’s wind. Both already had overshot the mark--that is, sailed farther than they to in order to fetch it--so all Koch could do was drop in behind Stars & Stripes and follow.

By then the wind had dropped to 7 or 8 knots. Conner led by 24 seconds at the first mark, then stretched out to as much as 5:41 at the next to last mark.

All of the races won’t be that easy. Stars & Stripes should be able to handle Jayhawk, a boat older than itself--although Josenhans said he didn’t know which boat is faster.

“Truly, we don’t know. We really haven’t raced them against each other.”

Conner might have helped himself by switching to a new mainsail--the only other mainsail he owns--after Tuesday’s setback, but it wasn’t out of desperation.

“We’re not so uptight that we feel we have to win every race,” Whidden said. “You think we’re the experienced guys, but we’ve got a ways to go. I said yesterday we were a little rusty, and we were probably a little rusty today, but we did better. There’s a lot of racing left.”

Team Dennis Conner executive Jerry LaDow said, “I think our sponsors understand this is a 50-race series. They’re patient.”

If it doesn’t always go as well as it did Wednesday, Bertrand added, “When this team gets behind it’s not like they’re in a panic and start making mistakes. We adjust quickly to get back to the front. We calmly, methodically assess the situation and go to work on it.”