NOTEBOOK : AMERICA’S CUP UPDATE : Cup Has French Connection to Winter Games in Albertville

The Winter Olympics connection:

Le Defi Francais is taking some natural interest in the Games at Albertville, France, but it was special Sunday when French skier Franck Piccard won a silver medal in the downhill.

Serge Guillaume, sailing coach for the French syndicate, was Piccard’s ski coach when he won a gold medal and a bronze at Calgary in 1988.

Local knowledge hasn’t played a large part in America 3’s success so far.

When the new America 3 trounced Stars & Stripes by 6:23 Saturday, mainsail trimmer Kimo Worthington of Oakland and navigator By Baldridge of Seabrook, Tex., were the only ones aboard from west of the Mississippi.

In Sunday’s victory over Stars & Stripes by 4:16, Defiant didn’t have anyone from west of Wisconsin along.

The New Zealand boat designed by Bruce Farr was the fastest of all in the challengers’ first round, but he denied calling it a “breakthrough” boat before it ever sailed.

“I did say we believed the boat would be quite a bit faster than our previous boats,” Farr said. “But I saw that misquoted as me saying it would be ‘faster than all the other IACC boats.’ ”

A breakthrough boat, in Farr’s mind, is one that proves itself by being dominant over a significant stretch--such as Steinlager 2, the big red ketch with which Peter Blake won the ‘89-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, winning every leg.

“There’s a breakthrough boat,” Farr said. “Yeah. I’ll concede that was a breakthrough boat. And we did a 44-foot IMS boat, Gaucho, this year that won the Key West regatta, winning races by 3 to 5 minutes every day.”

But nobody should call the Cup boat a breakthrough unless it wins the Cup.

“You can then,” Farr said.

Social note: All the syndicates’ tender drivers have been invited to Wednesday’s christening of Le Defi Francais’ new 65-foot work tender, Champs Elysees.

A tender carries spare sails and tows the race boat in and out every day.

In France, a christening is called a “bapteme,” or baptism, and, of course, sufficient reason for a party.

The new, apparently more conventional keel for Spirit of Australia was flown into LAX Sunday morning and delivered to Iain Murray’s Mission Bay compound by early afternoon.

The crew has been working around the clock to complete the boat’s other major modifications in time for the second round of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials on Saturday.

Asked when the boat would be ready to sail again, word from the camp was, “When we’re ready.”

The defenders postponed plans to switch to the shorter, 20.03-nautical mile course sailed by the challengers.

The challengers, who telecast live on some international networks in the first round, shortened the course from 22.6 nautical miles to get the races into a neater, three-hour package.

The defenders now say they’ll follow suit when ESPN’s TV coverage goes live in the U.S. on March 28.