New America 3 Leaves Stars & Stripes Behind : America’s Cup: Koch’s new boat wins by 6 minutes 23 seconds.

Something old, something new. Has time run out for midnight blue?

Not to hear Dennis Conner. Nobody would have guessed that America’s sailor had just lost the first race of the second round of the America’s Cup defender trials by about a mile Saturday.

Arriving alone at the post-race press conference well ahead of rivals Bill Koch and Buddy Melges, Conner smiled and announced, “This is the first time I’ve been in front all day.”

He had the attitude of a gambler who had lost the first pot to a multimillionaire trying to fill an inside straight but still had hopes with a dollar in his pocket.

But if the dream that this was to be Conner’s Cup is to come true, the hometown boy may need a new boat or a miracle.

Koch--the multimillionaire sailor, not the Olympic skier--led off the second round of defender trials with America 3--the boat, not the syndicate, and the third of four coming off his assembly line. It breezed to victory by a stunning 6 minutes 23 seconds in its maiden race.

Conner led off with all he had--Stars & Stripes, the oldest boat remaining in the competition--and it was no match for the newest. The beautiful blue boat is only 10 months old, but in this fast-moving age of high-tech sailing, that’s halfway to the museum.

Conner hoped modifications to the keel and rudder since the first round would make it faster in light winds. In Saturday’s light winds of 5 to 7 knots, America 3 was faster upwind, downwind and probably under tow.

Conner hoped new sails would help. It’s unthinkable what the result would have been with old sails.

No, it’s not over yet. Stars & Stripes will race Koch’s other, older boat, Defiant, today. But Stars & Stripes was 0-3 against Defiant in the first round.

“It’s difficult to know if the new America 3 boat is a lot faster or we were slower (than before),” Conner said. “We’ll have to wait and see how it goes tomorrow against a boat we know a little better.”

Koch offered a clue. “Oh, she’s faster than Defiant,” he said of his new boat.

Rumors that Conner has a secret boat coming refuse to die. If prayer can produce one, check the next sunbeam for delivery.

Meanwhile, Koch and Melges ae playing a pat hand. For the first time, they were on the same boat Saturday, as they were expected to be today.

In the absence of Dave Dellenbaugh, his starting helmsman on Defiant in the first round, the veteran Melges engaged Conner in a lively pre-start sequence from the 10-minute warning.

Conner won a slight advantage to the right at the gun, forcing Melges to tack away for clear wind. But the first time they crossed, Melges ducked Conner’s stern and Conner let him go, instead of quickly tacking to cover.

“It looked like there was a little more breeze off to the left,” Conner said.

But from that point on, he had an uphill battle. Never able to cross America 3, he finally took a calculated risk when Melges tacked on the layline to the windward mark. Thinking Melges had sailed farther than necessary to lay the mark, Conner tacked immediately, also.

Then Melges drove his boat down on top of Conner’s wind, suffocating Stars & Stripes so badly that Conner had to luff up to get clear, like a drowning man coming up for air.

As Melges rounded the mark, Conner desperately pinched his boat into the wind, his headsail limp and barely making headway. The crew did everything but get out and push, but by the time Stars & Stripes squeezed past the buoy, a two-boat-length deficit had become 10--officially, 50 seconds.

Until that sequence, Conner said, “We were hanging in there pretty well. For a while it looked liked we were gonna lay the mark. We were looking for the applause meter. But that didn’t last very long.”

Later, observers saw Stars & Stripes bowman Scotty Vogel, a mate holding him by the heels, hanging over the side with a stick trying to pull off kelp--or whatever was slowing the boat down--as America 3 stretched its lead, which isn’t unusual in the steady conditions that existed Saturday.

“There wasn’t all that much in it,” Conner said. “Who’s to know what would have happened if we’d have gone around the mark in front?”

Images from the on-board TV camera aboard America 3 told the rest of the story:

--Koch, after taking the helm for the third leg, with his arm around Melges, his tutor, on the fifth leg, giving a couple affectionate squeezes.

--America 3’s crew looking back and noting with satisfaction Stars & Stripes’ predicament when a gennaker tore across the middle as it was hoisted.

--America 3’s tactician, Andreas Josenhans, yawning.

--Melges joking with Koch and the afterguard.

--The crew chuckling as Stars & Stripes’ new Kodalux spinnaker, for its newest sponsor, twisted into an inefficient hourglass shape.

--The crew hugging and high-fiving at the finish.

Was the celebration premature?

The worst of Conner’s three losses to Defiant was by 3:46.

But the Conner mystique survives. A second boat? Something else up his sleeve?

Conner’s wake is strewn with the flotsam of those who have written him off too soon.