AMERICA’S CUP DAILY REPORT : CHALLENGER, DEFENDER TRIALS : Italy Is Defeated by Japan Again

Nippon held on to beat Il Moro di Venezia by five seconds, with both flying protest flags Sunday, but that was no surprise. When those two race, the extraordinary is routine.

Wildly shifting winds brought not only rain, but the first victory during the challenger trials for Challenge Australia (1-15), which ended Spirit of Australia’s hopes of reaching the semifinals. For the first time in eight multinational defenses since 1967, there will be no Australian boat in the final match.

Ville de Paris beat Sweden’s Tre Kronor by 22:32, the largest winning margin of the three rounds, and New Zealand led Espana ’92 by 52:59 in dying zephyrs before the Spaniards caught a jet stream to close to 17:46 on the final leg.

The race between Nippon and Il Moro was the closest of the trials so far. Paul Cayard’s Italians beat Chris Dickson’s Japanese by 11 seconds at the end of the second round, but that was was resailed the next day because of a moving mark, and Il Moro won again by 0:46.

During the first round, Nippon was trailing when Il Moro, confused by a course change, sailed far enough toward the wrong mark to give Nippon the race. A similar problem developed Sunday. The difference this time was that Il Moro knew where the mark was supposed to be. Cayard claimed that when a committee boat signaled a course change giving a new heading of 280 degrees--approximately west. Instead, Cayard said, the heading actually was 230--southwest.

That’s a critical difference when the mark--an orange, 10-foot-diameter inflatable bouy--is 2.66 miles away. The Italians protested, hoping to have the race resailed. Dickson also protested, but lowered his flag after finishing first.

On the defenders’ course, the America 3 stablemates, with rival Dennis Conner’s permission, sailed a best-of-three, short-course set for the day’s four points--and the newer America 3boat apparently played it straight, instead of throwing points to Defiant that would have moved the older boat into second place ahead of Conner’s Stars & Stripes.

America 3 won by 31 seconds and two minutes even. They had planned to sail a third race, but the wind died.