AMERICAN’S CUP ’92 : Nippon Challenge Enjoys Fateful Day

There is more mystery in this America’s Cup than all the secret keels.

For the third time in the last three days of challenger races, the Fates were at work to rob the lead boat of victory in the featured race of the day.

First it was New Zealand’s attack of klutzomania Sunday at the windward mark against Il Moro di Venezia, then Il Moro’s Roy Riegels run Tuesday against Nippon Challenge.

On Wednesday, Ville de Paris’ beautiful blue boat was leading Nippon by 1:14 when the French decided to try gill-netting for tuna with their spinnaker. They not only didn’t catch any fish but they lost the race by 29 seconds, despite a valiant comeback try.

No one would be surprised if those things were happening to some of the less experienced teams, but New Zealand (3-1), Il Moro (3-1) and Ville de Paris (2-2) are strong syndicates with some of the world’s best sailors.

Having benefited from their rivals’ catastrophes on two consecutive days, the novice entry from Japan (4-0) is the only unbeaten team in the first round of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials.

French tactician Marc Bouet said, “Today’s race was not a victory for the Japanese but a defeat for the French. They should be more worried than we are tonight.”

Said Chris Dickson, Nippon Challenge skipper, “It felt like a win.”

It was worth only one point to Nippon--victories will count four points in the second round and eight in the third--but Dickson said, “Every point that comes our way we’ll take.”

Today they are scheduled to race New Zealand--Dickson’s first race against the Kiwis since he defected to Japan after the ’87 Cup.

Also today, Spirit of Australia (2-2) will race Espana ’92 (2-2), while Ville de Paris and Il Moro will test sails against Tre Kronor (0-4) and Challenge Australia (0-4), respectively.

In other races Wednesday, New Zealand’s only problem against Sweden’s Tre Kronor was staying awake to win by 9:38; Spirit of Australia finally shook off Challenge Australia on the next-to-last leg of a 2:18 victory, and Il Moro di Venezia recovered from Tuesday’s navigational nightmare to leave Espana ’92 in its wake by 9:46, or more than a mile.

Wednesday’s winds were a light but satisfactory 5 to 9 knots, with steady and modest shifts of only 30 degrees. The difference in the races was speed and, in France’s case, crew work.

Bouet, the starting helmsman, outmaneuvered Dickson to gain the favored left side of the course, and the long Ville de Paris showed its usual speed to build a lead of 44 seconds at the windward mark.

The lead held through the next three legs of the 20-mile course, then it all fell apart.

Although they were in firm command, the French took a chance rounding the first reach mark by attempting a jibe peel--raising a gennaker for the next leg before lowering the spinnaker from the previous leg while doing a 120-degree hard left turn.

The crew had doused the spinnaker on the deck, then turned to deal with the gennaker without noticing that the head of the spinnaker had slipped over the bow and was being dragged under the boat.

Bowman Bruno Jeanjean saw it first, and was joined by three others frantically trying to retrieve it.

Meanwhile, a loose sheet wrapped around a leg of mainsail trimmer Fabrice Levet, and No. 2 bowman Jean-Francois Rivalant was tangled in the gennaker--both near being dragged overboard.

By that time the boat was dead in the water and skipper Marc Pajot was just hoping he wouldn’t lose anybody, as Dickson, smelling blood, came wheeling around the mark like a cat after a crippled bird. In less than a minute he was past and gone.

The crew managed to pull the spinnaker free of the keel, then cut it free to be retrieved by their chase boat.

Remarkably, the French recovered to press Nippon through the last four legs, all the while with Bertrand Pace trying to poke the remains of the spinnaker off the rudder with the stick of the protest flag.

Bouet said the French might have done a more conservative maneuver if the race had been more important.

“I feel it was a good decision,” he said. “The problem is we hoisted the gennaker a little too late and the spinnaker guy (line) went over the side.

“Perhaps it was a little risky. It’s not easy to lower a spinnaker and set a gennaker in the same maneuver, but we tried it in the first round when it’s not important. In the third round we probably wouldn’t try it.”

Dickson said Nippon’s last two wins weren’t entirely blind luck.

“We prefer to start in front and extend the lead, but if we can’t be in the front we’ll be as close behind as we can and we’ll look for our opportunity.

“These boats are not easy to race. The crews are under pressure, the tacticians are under pressure. We can’t count on winning every race through other people’s errors. We’d like to think we could win a few on our own merits.

“But if someone makes a mistake I hope we could take advantage of it.”