Challenger Dichotomy Develops
The America’s Cup challengers are sailing in opposite directions, and it has nothing to do with wind shifts.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that New Zealand, the Italians, Japanese and French are looking like the top four at the moment,” New Zealand tactician David Barnes said Tuesday.
A victory against Nippon by 2 minutes, 21 seconds put the Kiwis (9-1) atop the heap midway of the second round of the Louis Vuitton Cup trials. New Zealand is followed by Nippon and Italy (8-2) and France (6-4).
They also are the best funded with the best R&D; programs. New Zealand built four boats, Italy five and Nippon and France three apiece.
The gulf separating them from the lower four--Spain (4-6), Spirit of Australia (4-6), Sweden (1-9) and Challenge Australia (0-10)--only figures to get wider from here. Among them the stragglers have built only five boats, which may be why the second Espana ’92 has had its moments at being competitive.
Espana is in fourth place, with 10 points to Ville de Paris’ 9. But that’s a mathematical illusion that is expected to be corrected when those two meet each other today. The French walloped the Spaniards by 6:24 in their first-round match.
A far better race today should be New Zealand against Il Moro di Venezia, the only boat to beat the Kiwis.
Tuesday’s races, sailed in a northwest sea breeze building from 6 to 14 knots, were true to form--too much so for Nippon and skipper Chris Dickson.
Starting 10 minutes later, a close race between New Zealand and Nippon became a Kiwi cruise when they overtook the previous match between Spain and Sweden at the first mark. Rod Davis steered the little red boat through the traffic safely but the Japanese got stuck in Spain’s disturbed air and never escaped.
Ville de Paris stiff-armed Spirit of Australia by 1:48, Il Moro dunked Challenge Australia by 6:57, and Spain took Tre Kronor by default.
In the latter match, for the first time in this event the Swedes, whose only victory was a forfeit from Challenge Australia, actually led at a mark rounding--53 seconds on the first windward leg.
Skipper Gunnar Krantz said, “It was a great feeling to have the lead at the first mark . . . clear air, nobody in front of us. The question (was), what do we do now?”
What they did was collect some kelp on their keel to blow the lead, and then, after dropping behind by 5:32, they went home to Mission Bay when something broke--their spinnaker pole or perhaps their smorgasbord.
The day’s only surprise was on the defenders’ course, where Dave Dellenbaugh sailed Defiant to its first victory over its newer, previously unbeaten stablemate, America 3, with Bill Koch at the helm, by 1:05.
Koch, steering for starts for the first time, won that one by about two boat lengths, but tactician Andreas Josenhans said, “I was certain we were over early. Our bowman (Jerry Kirby) was certain we were over early.”
Kirby yelled that the committee boat was displaying their code flag--red--indicating they were over early.
But it was the red flag indicating the race had started. Koch was right on time. But by the time he wheeled the boat back to restart, Defiant was about 10 boat lengths in front and fought off America 3’s efforts to pass.
“Bill did a great job,” Josenhans said. “I hope we learned something.”
That followed America 3’s 38-second victory in the first race of the intrasquad doubleheader that wound up the defenders’ second round.
They sailed shorter courses of 8 and 13.2 nautical miles, rather than their usual 22.6. Buddy Melges had the day off, and Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes had the bye.
The defenders’ races are worth little more than academic interest at this point, since even Conner’s boat can’t be ousted until April. And he’s saving expenses by living at home.
Some of the challengers face more difficult decisions. How long they or Syd Fischer’s winless Challenge Australians will hang around to serve as punching bags for the rest of the fleet is subject to speculation.
Officially, they won’t be eliminated until the point totals are tabulated after the third round ending March 17.
Dickson said, “The important racing is still to come. Everyone is beatable. I’m looking forward to racing the Kiwis in Round 3 and taking one off them.”
Barnes said winning easy races isn’t helping New Zealand sharpen its sailing. The 2:21 margin was their second-closest race victory.
“After getting a couple of minutes in front the race changes,” he said. “We spend as much time as we can sort of pushing ourselves around the course . . . making sure we don’t get too relaxed.
“Today was a very good race for us because the Japanese were on our heels all the way and we couldn’t afford any slipups. It’s actually difficult for us in some of the races, for sure.”
From a defenders’ viewpoint, Josenhans said, “The challengers look scary fast.”
Four of them, anyway.