Defiant Retires; Unnamed Yacht Next Up
The final race of the third round of the Defender Series was just for fun Sunday, with the America 3 syndicate holding an intramural scrimmage and mixing up its lineup.
Navigators were helmsmen. Helmsmen skippered. A splendid time was had by all.
But when the next round robin series starts on March 28, the Cubens hope the joke is on Team Dennis Conner.
In the meantime, Bill Koch’s America 3 syndicate will try out its latest, as yet unnamed boat--the syndicate’s fourth--in place of Defiant, its No. 2 boat through the last two series. Defiant retires after going 2-6 in the third round--including a surprise victory over stablemate America 3--and 10-10 overall, in last place with 12 points.
America 3 concluded the Defender Series third round Sunday with a victory over Defiant in a best-of-three race scrimmage. It counted as one victory.
America 3, which was 7-1 in the third round with one unexpected upset last week to Stars & Stripes, leads by a sizable margin with an 18-2 record and 44 points. Stars & Stripes, 3-5 in the latest round thanks to a late rally, has 19 points.
If the new boat is as good as the syndicate hopes, it could become the No. 1 boat. Navigator Bill Campbell said the America 3 team will have the next series to figure that out after testing it next week.
Or it could be used to double-team Conner’s Stars & Stripes. Either way, the Cubens hope that when the Defender finals begin in mid-April, two America 3 boats are involved.
Campbell said Koch and right-hand-man/helmsman Buddy Melges will man whichever boat is facing Conner, with experimentation and lineup changes being tried in intramural races.
The unspoken idea, naturally, is that the syndicate do what it can for the new boat to overtake Conner in the standings.
“Till we test the boat, see how it is speed-wise and in different winds, we won’t know,” Campbell said. “We have until May 4 to decide, and we really don’t know--we may take one boat or two boats to the (Defender) finals.
“Our goal is to have both boats in the finals. We feel it’s a do-able thing. It’s a matter of beating Dennis a majority of the time, beating him more often than he beats us. Mathematically, it can be done.”
Campbell added a caveat, though, that Conner’s team seemed to be getting more competitive lately and that a strong challenge is still expected, America 3’s 18-2 record notwithstanding.
“Dennis beat us and was very good the last couple days, but . . . we’re ecstatic with our results,” Campbell said.
“It was unreasonable to think we were gonna go through a series like this, 30 or 40 races, unscathed. And Dennis is too good. We all know what he can do. We realize he’s gonna stay on top of his game. We just hope to stay consistently a touch faster around the course.”
The new boat will be christened next week, and if a name is being considered it’s top-secret, Campbell said with a laugh. “Haven’t even heard any ideas. No clues.”
The question of the moment, however, is how the boat will perform. For now, Campbell said, that’s as intriguing a question for Koch’s team as it is for Conner’s.
After taking a few days off, the crew will begin testing it in midweek. “The boat looks really nice, we’re enthused about it,” Campbell said. “It’s sort of a new project, a new focus for us during this break.”