AMERICA’S CUP : DEFENDER TRIALS : Stars & Stripes Finally Beats Defiant With Bertrand at Helm

With strategist John Bertrand at the helm, Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes defeated Bill Koch’s Defiant by 55 seconds Thursday for the first time in five tries in the America’s Cup defender trials.

Conner was en route Thursday to a scheduled boat show appearance in Miami.

Stars & Stripes trailed Defiant by as much as 1 minute 1 second before coming back to win the fifth race of the second round of defender trials. Stars & Stripes completed the eight-leg, 22.6-mile course in 3 hours 4 minutes 43 seconds.

It was Stars & Stripes’ first victory in the second round, having lost once to Defiant and twice to America 3. America 3leads the series with 12 points. Stars and Stripes has five points and Defiant two. Today is a lay day.

Stars & Stripes had a new keel, rudder and mast combination installed Wednesday night. The crew, working in shifts, labored in the wind and rain through the night to complete a refit similar to that on the boat in the first round.

Between the first and second rounds, Conner outfitted Stars & Stripes’ with an experimental tandem keel configuration that actually slowed the boat down when sailing upwind.