Syndicates Not Ready to Jump Ship in Search for Right Keel : Sailing: A bad day at sea won’t force Spirit of Australia to abandon its redesigned keel.

No “Sailing As A Second Language” prerequisite needed to understand this poignant explanation.

“The two boats ran into each other, and we came out second best,” said Iain Murray, Spirit of Australia’s syndicate head.

Second best and seeing double.

According to skipper Peter Gilmour, Murray could only stare at the blurred image of New Zealand’s keel as Round 2 of the Louis Vuitton Cup got under way Sunday off Point Loma.

“He was transfixed on it so much that both boats came together,” said Gilmour, who could do little but watch helplessly as New Zealand drowned Spirit of Australia by 12 minutes 12 seconds. “The water was very still. I’m sure they had a very good look at our keel, and we have a very good look at theirs. It was almost like a mirror image.”

Make that a three-way mirror.

Preliminary reports indicate that the radical keel and rudder system that Dennis Conner ripped off Stars & Stripes after it flopped in its debut is quite similar to the keels that now accessorize the undersides of New Zealand’s fourth boat and Spirit of Australia’s only boat.

But one lousy day at sea--Conner waited until Stars & Stripes had been beaten three times--isn’t reason enough for the Aussies to rush back to the workshop and undo the modifications they made between rounds.

“No, we have a long way to go,” Murray said. “We were quite happy. It was the first time we sailed with the new configurations and we weren’t disappointed.”

Said Gilmour: “In terms of where we are in respect to going back to January, we’re not even contemplating it. We have a pretty good idea of the shape and the style that New Zealand has on board, and we’re pretty happy where we are.”

Did, in fact, Conner jump the gun by switching back to the original keel so soon?

“I think so,” Gilmour said. “It really is something that’s well worth pursuing. We’re delighted with what we’re getting out of it.”

Delighting in a loss of more than a dozen minutes might boggle the minds of some, but remember, these are still preliminary rounds--fastest down the hill doesn’t win all--and syndicates are still ironing out the kinks.

“It’s hard to draw conclusions after one day,” Murray said. “We are learning a lot about the boat, the angles, how to balance it, how to trim the sails. The more time we have learning to sail and deal with it, the better off we are.”

Some kinks are worse than others, but Murray and Gilmour agreed that Sunday’s race had little reflection on how fast the boat can or can’t go.

“It had nothing to do with the boat,” Murray said. “We simply got out to the wrong side of the course.”

Said Gilmour: “We were virtually sailing a different race out there compared to what New Zealand was doing.”

Spirit of Australia withdrew its boat from the final two races of Round 1 to make what were considered major modifications to its boat. But Murray said fiddlesticks to the idea that its new configurations should attract such attention.

“I don’t think they’re radical, especially when you look at the Kiwi boat,” he said.

Another yacht that underwent redesign work was Challenge Australia, which lost a match race against Espana ’92 on Sunday by 5:46 and has yet to win a single trial race.

A controversial bowsprit was added to Challenge Australia between rounds, but Syd Fischer, syndicate head, wouldn’t categorize its changes as wild or conservative.

“I wouldn’t call them radical, just major,” said Fischer, who echoed Murray’s sentiments, that it would take a few days to find out if the modifications have helped. “We should know in a couple days if they are working properly.”

Maybe next round someone will attach Flipper to the keel as the search for the perfect appendage continues.