Melges ‘Surprised’ by Defiant’s Speed : Sailing: Boat finishes first round of defender trials with 6-0 mark.

The America’s Cup trials are a lot like college exams. Why sweat midterms when you can just as well cram for finals? After all, they’re worth more than half your grade.

Saturday marked the end of the beginning of the Defender Selection Series for America 3’s Jayhawk and Defiant, with Bill Koch’s two boats keeping zeros in their respective win and loss columns.

Defiant ended Round 1 with a 6-0 mark, with Jayhawk at 0-6. Team Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes (3-3) finished Thursday, after losing three matches to Defiant and defeating Jayhawk the other three times.

In their closest duel yet, Jayhawk, skippered by Koch, won the start but was overcome by its swifter and younger sibling shortly thereafter. Defiant and Jayhawk, which made her last appearance before she is put out to pasture, exchanged brief leads on the first leg before the former took charge on the rest course. Defiant finished with a 1-minute 59-second victory and the realization that this boat has a heap of untapped potential.

“The overall boat speed of Defiant was a surprise,” said skipper Buddy Melges. “I don’t think anyone thought she was capable of what she turned out to be. And there’s still quite a bit of experimentation going on. There’s lots we’re doing with Defiant, a lot of optimizing we can do. She won’t be the same boat you saw in the first round.”

Still, the action won’t ignite until Round 3, when each victory is worth four points. Victories in the opening round are worth one point for defenders and challengers and increase to two points in Round 2, beginning Feb. 8 for defenders.

“I don’t put that much stock in this, they’re just six practice races,” said Melges, who celebrates his 62nd birthday today. “It’s a feeling-out process, like the first few rounds of a prize fight. We’re still popping around the ring.”

But will Defiant have a worthy opponent in Stars & Stripes and America 3’s yet-to-be-named, already numbered (USA-23) third boat, which arrived Saturday on an Antonov 124 at Lindbergh Field?

Melges conceded there is sufficient competition, but he hopes it will steadily improve.

“I have a way of not wanting to trash everyone around,” he said. “I hope it gets better. But Dennis will be making a lot of changes in the next two weeks and we have our third boat.”

The arrival of the third boat--a fourth is expected for later rounds--raises the question of who will ride on it and who will drive it. According to Melges, boss Koch is likely to take the helm of the newest member of the America 3 family before Melges gets his turn.

“I’ll probably stay on (Defiant) for a while,” he said. “I hope I’ll get a crack at (USA-23), but it may not be until the end of the next series.”

Hand-in-hand with skipper selection goes crew composition, and America 3 has yet to find the ideal 16-man combination.

“Boat speed plays a huge part, but the magic of people combinations haven’t fully been explored,” said Jayhawk tactician Andreas Josenhans. “You know when you’ve come across that and surprising as it seems, there are some combinations that still haven’t been tried. It’s too early to single anyone out because we are a large group, but we’re still looking for that magic spark.”

Said Melges: “There will be some changes but there’s no A and B team. It’s blue and red. The guys swap T-shirts, that’s all. The only difference is in the laundry.”

Jayhawk came out of the round winless, but Josenhans said that’s no reason to throw in the towel. Instead, it confirmed what the defenders already knew.

“It’s such a technically driven sport,” he said. “Was it Buddy who said these boats were designed on a cocktail napkin? In a non-race situation, these boats race hundreds of hours side by side. We had a good handle on which is faster and why. If race results bear that out, it’s not discouraging. It’s not disheartening because you’re doing what you’ve already proven.”

Why, then, did Jayhawk’s losing times decrease each time it went head-to-head with Defiant?

“The crew is getting nastier, that’s all,” Josenhans said. “They hate getting beat.”