Defiant Sails to Daylight as Conner Bites the Dusk : Defender trials: Melges outmaneuvers Stars & Stripes at start, and tedious race in light winds turns into a rout.

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” means a fair tomorrow for mariners--but not necessarily for Dennis Conner.

America’s sailor, steering Stars & Stripes, was so far behind America 3’s Buddy Melges, with Defiant, in Saturday’s agonizingly slow America’s Cup defender trials race that photographers were angling for position to frame Conner’s Stars & Stripes with the sun descending behind it.

They already had their captions written: “Sun Sets on Dennis.”

With 3 1/2 months of defender trials remaining, it’s a trifle early for obituaries. But Melges’ margin of 3 minutes 46 seconds--after leading by 6:22 late in the race--was such that there has to be concern whether Stars & Stripes can ever catch up.

“If I were Dennis,” said a high-ranking member of the America 3 camp, “I would have some serious concerns right now.”

Conner has seldom--maybe never--appeared less competitive in the America’s Cup. His only boat has lost both of its races against Defiant, which is the faster of America 3’s current two boats, with two more supposedly faster ones on the way.

It could be that Conner and his battle-proven afterguard are tactically rusty, having spent far less time than their rivals on the water the last several months. Saturday, as starting helmsman Dave Dellenbaugh took Defiant to better wind on the right side of the course, out to sea, Conner went left toward Mexico.

Then Conner tried to get Stars & Stripes to the right, but Melges had firm control with his starboard-tack right of way and drove Conner away every time until Defiant’s lead was insurmountable.

“We wanted to go right, too,” Stars & Stripes’ John Bertrand said. “That was our game plan. But they did a little better job than we did in the prestart (maneuvering for position).

“I think that will come. We haven’t had the benefit of circling with another boat and having a few starts because we don’t have another boat.”

So they aren’t ready to scuttle Stars & Stripes yet.

“We don’t know if we have a slower boat,” Bertrand said.

The start of Saturday’s race was delayed 1 hour 40 minutes until a mere 4-5 knots of wind arrived from the south. It never got above 6 knots before the boats drifted home nearly four hours later in total darkness, save for a full moon rising over Coronado.

By that time Stars & Stripes’ situation was so desperate that after the sun went down on the seventh, next-to-last leg of the 22.6-nautical mile Cup course, Conner raised a protest flag. He wasn’t sure Defiant had running lights for night sailing, as required by the rules.

However, on-the-water umpire chairman Cy Gillette checked it out and informed Conner that Defiant did indeed have lights, so Conner dropped plans to protest.

Moments before the start, both boats luffed up below the line until Dellenbaugh bailed out on port tack as Conner fell away to the other end of the line.

Dellenbaugh said, “We wanted the right side. We wanted to get out to the ocean (where) we thought there was more breeze.”

Then Dellenbaugh turned the helm over to the veteran Melges, who held Conner off until it didn’t matter anymore.

Three times in the first 14 minutes Conner tried to cross Defiant on port tack, with no right of way, but the best he could do was to tack on Melges’ lee bow and force Melges to bail out right, out of Stars & Stripes’ disturbed air.

Then Melges just kept driving Defiant to extended leads. Conner’s only hope to avoid defeat was that the light winds would keep Defiant from finishing within the 4-hour 45-minute time limit, but Defiant finished with 45 minutes to spare.

Stars & Stripes’ 17th crewman Saturday was Mike Lorelli, executive vice-president of Pepsi, one of Stars & Stripes’ sponsors.

Bertrand said, “I told him before the race that in those conditions the boat that was going to win this race was the boat that got the shifts and was going to win it by a landslide. I guess he believes me now.”

Stars & Stripes, now 1-2 to Defiant’s 3-0 in the first round-robin, is scheduled to race America 3’s Jayhawk, with owner-skipper Bill Koch, today. It won Wednesday’s match between those two by 4:10.