SAILING AMERICA’S CUP : Koch Brings Fourth Boat in Drive to Oust Conner

Bill Koch has a new 1-2 punch ready to knock Dennis Conner out of the America’s Cup, but there’s a problem.

With all of Koch’s millions, he can’t control the weather. That complicated his decision on how to align his two boats--America 3, the third one, or Kanza, the new, fourth one--for the fourth round of the defender trials starting today. The races will be televised by ESPN.

One boat was to inherit two bonus victories from America 3’s first-place finish in the three points rounds, the other none from Defiant’s last-place finish behind Conner’s Stars & Stripes. Conner gets one bonus victory.

The three boats will race each other four times, only two surviving to the finals starting April 18--and Koch is determined that both will be his.

But America 3was built for light wind, Kanza for strong wind.

Checking weather projections, Koch delayed his decision as long as possible until noon Friday before giving Kanza the top slot and leaving America 3to survive on its own, from scratch.

Weather data for the Point Loma area say that winds are strongest in March and April, with a mean afternoon breeze of 11.8 knots, then slacken to 11.2 in May. If that holds, Kanza might not need any help, and America 3could be in trouble.

So Kanza will open against Stars & Stripes at noon today with two victories before it has sailed a race. After two days off, Stars & Stripes will meet America 3Tuesday.

Stars & Stripes is 8-12 against Koch’s stable and only 1-6 against America 3, which it finally beat in the last meeting, leading to confidence in Conner’s camp that it had caught up to America 3, as it caught up to Defiant earlier.

Conner’s only hope has been to keep improving his only boat. So since the third round ended March 15, Stars & Stripes has lost weight.

The idea was to lighten the mast and ends of the boat to concentrate the weight low in the middle so it won’t pitch in choppy water--Stars & Stripes’ major perceived weakness.