AMERICA’S CUP : DAILY REPORT : DEFENDER TRIALS : Round Two, Same Result: Conner Loses

Nobody would have guessed Dennis Conner 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 news 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.”

Koch led off the second round of defender trials with America--the boat, not the syndicate. It’s the third of four boats coming off his assembly line, and it won by a stunning 6 minutes 23 seconds in its maiden race.

Conner’s Stars & Stripes is the oldest boat remaining in the competition, and it was no match for the newest. Stars & Stripes is only 10 months old, but in high-tech sailing, that’s halfway to a museum.

Modifications to the keel and rudder since the first round were attempts to make it faster in light winds. In Saturday’s light winds of 5 to 7 knots, America3 was faster upwind, downwind and probably under tow.

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 America3 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 another boat coming refuse to die.

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

Conner won a slight advantage to the right at the gun at the start, 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.

A maneuver countered at the windward mark by Melges left Conner’s headsail limp and barely making headway as America3 stole the wind. Conner’s 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 then, 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--as America 3stretched its lead.

Images from the on-board TV camera aboard America 3told the rest of the story, including the celebration.