AMERICA’S CUP / DAILY REPORT : CHALLENGER TRIALS : Swedes Struggle--From Start to Finish

In the first-ever America’s Cup meeting between Italy and Sweden, Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia won in a rout. The Swedish boat, Tre Kronor, didn’t even bother to cross the finish line.

But then Tre Kronor didn’t officially cross the start line, either.

Things started poorly for Tre Kronor skipper Gunnar Krantz and his crew Saturday, Day 6 of the challengers’ trials, and got progressively worse.

Actually, the start proved to be a tricky maneuver for both Il Moro and Tre Kronor, and both were flagged for premature starts and had to go back to “touch” the start line. The Paul Cayard-skippered Italians got there, the Swedes only made it three-quarters of the way there and thus were disqualified.

The Swedes knew they hadn’t cleared the start, but decided they would rather try out their new mainsail, their non-measured mainsail, and see how it performed against proven Il Moro.

In the only other race of the day, New Zealand steadily increased its lead over Espana ’92 en route to a 4-minute 16-second victory over the 20 nautical-mile course off Point Loma.

Ville de Paris and Nippon were left to sail solo when earlier withdrawals from the end of Round One by Spirit of Australia and Challenge Australia forced them to finish the course alone, and under the alloted 4-hour 12-minute time limit to earn their respective points--one each.

So going into today’s final matches of the opening round, Il Moro, Nippon and New Zealand are tied for the lead at five victories apiece. Ville de Paris has four victories, Spirit of Australia has three and Espana has two. Challenge Australia and Tre Kronor have yet to score a point.

Today, Il Moro squares off with Ville de Paris and Espana meets Nippon. Tre Kronor, which simply has to finish to win its first point of the competition, and New Zealand will race among themselves.