Stiffer Winds Blow Conner to a Rout : Sailing: Stars & Stripes’ 6:08 margin of victory over Jayhawk is biggest so far in defender trials.

One more race, and Jayhawk goes off to the big boat graveyard in the sky.

Why? Because there’s more where that came from.

Jayhawk, the first of America 3’s fleet of International America’s Cup Class yachts, is finishing the first round of the Defender Selection Series as it started--by losing.

In the eighth race, Stars & Stripes sleepwalked to a whopping 6-minute, 8-second victory over Jayhawk and Bill Koch in winds of eight to 12 knots off Point Loma.

It was the largest margin of victory in the trials, shattering the 4:10 margin by which Dennis Conner-skippered Stars & Stripes beat Jayhawk on Jan. 15.

The loss keeps Jayhawk’s losing streak intact at 0-5. For .500 Team Dennis Conner (3-3), it was a moral shot in the arm after Wednesday’s setback against Defiant (5-0), America 3’s speedy second boat.

“On one hand, (Jayhawk is) the boat that hasn’t won yet, but on the other hand, it was a big victory,” said Tom Whidden, Stars & Stripes tactician.

So Jayhawk and younger sister Defiant conclude Round 1 Saturday, then Jayhawk will be formally retired. In its place will be Koch’s yet-to-be-named third boat, which is still in the shed at Eric Goetz’s shipyard in Bristol, R.I. Delivery on sloop No. 4 is expected sometime down the line.

“The (third) boat will be ready for Round 2,” said America 3 vice president Rick Wrightson, who added that spirits were status quo despite the defeat.

“It was to be expected,” Wrightson said. “We’ve been happy with our results and like Bill says, Dennis is always tough. It’s a matter of boat speed, and this is our slowest boat.”

Not a comforting thought to Conner, who has only one boat and has yet to find a way to defeat Defiant, a yacht that might be obsolete by the fourth round.

Never mind, Whidden said. It’s still too early for predictions, and a lot can happen during the two-week lay period.

“He who uses the time between the series the best will reap the most rewards,” said Whidden, who included sail inventory and crew tune-ups in this time of reflection and work.

“Obviously, we would have liked to beat Defiant to prove we could, but it was a good race (Wednesday), and they weren’t the other two times. We felt we improved.”

More importantly, Whidden said, the strides Stars & Stripes made late in the week counted more because “we have further to come.”

Both boats began Thursday’s race on the right side of the course, but it didn’t take Stars & Stripes long to pull away.

On the first leg, where Stars & Stripes won the race, Conner protected the right for the first half of the beat and gained even more as they swapped sides.

“The rest of the race, we stayed left at the top and right at the bottom, we had good crew work and boat speed, and that was pretty much it,” Whidden said.

Stars & Stripes completed 19 tacks to Jayhawk’s 17 before they rounded the first mark, where the former led by 1:27. Jayhawk actually picked up seven seconds on the fourth windward leg, but Stars & Stripes got it back on the first reach.

Jayhawk took its most severe beating on the three nautical miles between the sixth and seventh legs, where the wind kicked up to 12 knots and Stars & Stripes extended its 3:46 lead to 5:48.

Winds off Point Loma blew harder Wednesday and Thursday than earlier in the week, making Stars & Stripes, which is set up for stronger winds, more competitive.

“(America 3) probably did a little better job of setting up for the weather,” Whidden said. “We’re more upper-breeze oriented and they’re lesser-wind oriented and today, it was better suited for us.”