AMERICA’S CUP UPDATE : NOTEBOOK : Conner’s Misfortune Is a Cause for Conversation, Celebration

Two American expatriate skippers, Il Moro’s Paul Cayard and New Zealand’s Rod Davis, were asked what they thought of Dennis Conner’s chances at this point.

Cayard said, “Dennis is having a hard time and some long days. It’s going to be tough for him to overcome the America 3 program, but there is still time to put some new ideas on his boat, and I think he will be uninhibited in doing so.”

Davis said, “I’d sum it up as desperate. If he’s not on the ropes, he’s awfully close to ‘em.”

Conner, asked whether he planned to modify Stars & Stripes’ bow before the next round, went mum. He suggested that America 3, notorious for its spy operations, will find out soon enough.

“We’ll keep that quiet until the infra-red cameras and the laser guns and the Gazebos (i.e., the spy boat Guzzini) and the helicopters find out about 10 minutes after we put the boat in the water,” Conner said.

Robin Harrison of Radio New Zealand was on the air in Christchurch preparing to interview America’s Cup journalists in San Diego this week when they told him about Stars & Stripes’ accident.

What most Kiwis know about Dennis Conner is that he suggested they were cheating by building a fiberglass 12-meter in 1986, then insulted them after trouncing their big monohull with a catamaran in ’88.

Harrison passed the news along to his listeners, then said later, “You could have heard a collective cheer (in New Zealand) when it was reported that Dennis Conner had broken his mast.”

Sir Michael Fay has kept a low profile while making Peter Blake, hero of the Whitbread Round-the-World Race, the management spokesman for New Zealand. Blake is running with it, bashing Americans, Japanese and Australians alike.

While suggesting that the America’s Cup match jury that ruled against his bowsprit was rigged by the defenders, and that the chairman of the challengers’ jury was “wishy-washy,” he also took off on Nippon Challenge and its skipper, Chris Dickson, a fellow Kiwi.

“He is a mercenary working for the Japanese, because they can’t do it themselves,” Blake told Peter Montgomery of Radio New Zealand. “They wouldn’t have the know-how, and here he is talking about sportsmanship by the New Zealanders.”

Dickson had said earlier that he was sure New Zealand would comply with the bowsprit ruling because Kiwis are such good sports.

“I hope he can never, ever return home to New Zealand, because he is not a New Zealander,” Blake said. “This doesn’t wash with us. Sportsmanship--there isn’t any around here. And that’s the whole crux of the matter. Where has the sportsmanship gone?”

If Blake’s intent was to bait him, Dickson didn’t bite. “I have not given up my nationality,” he said.

As for Graeme Owens, the “wishy-washy” jury chairman from Australia, Blake said, “He will just hunt with the hare and run with hounds.”

Blake certainly has a way with words.

Cayard, like Dickson a hired foreigner, said, “It’s a shame that someone as inside the game as Peter Blake would have to make comments like that. I think it’s in the best interest of the event. It deserves to have the best people sailing in it.”

Blake also took a swipe at Tom Ehman, executive vice-president/general manager of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, who he said “has been one of the people who have said they will jimmy the rules as much as they can. . . . He is one of the guys that appointed the second jury (which ruled against the Kiwis’ use of their bowsprit).

“The Americans have stuffed it up so far as much as they possibly could.”

A sailing rules expert brings up two points on last weekend’s incident when Spain’s spinnaker fouled Sweden’s keel and the challengers’ jury upheld Spain’s win.

The expert, who asked to remain anonymous because of his involvement in the America’s Cup, said the race committee could have prevented the case from ever reaching the jury by invoking Rule 5.4 (c) (iv) in the race organization and management section of the International Yacht Racing Rules,

The rule reads: “After the starting signal, the race committee may . . . abandon or cancel the race . . . for any other reasons directly affecting the safety or fairness of the competition.”

Stan Reid, chairman of the Challenger of Record Committee, at first said he wasn’t aware of how the rule might apply, but after studying it said, “I suppose it might have, except I don’t know if I would have been in position to know if it was the spinnaker caught on the keel or some kelp.

“From where I was--and I was on the nearest committee boat--I couldn’t see if Spain had actually released the sail completely.”

The latter point is pertinent because until the spinnaker is cut free, it remains part of the boat, and Sweden is obligated to keep clear.

The expert also said, however, that a new rule to cover the situation might raise other problems. “Every time you jettison a sail, the guy behind would try to run into it,” the expert said.