Conner Gets A Huge Break As Kanza Breaks Mast Ram : America’s Cup: Incident forces boat to make repairs before showdown with Stars & Stripes.

SAN DIEGO — Dennis Conner wasn’t expecting a break from rival camp America 3 Sunday.

Nonetheless, in this semifinal round of the defenders’ trials, he got one . . . Literally.

Conner assumed, like all the free world, that the result of A3’s intramural race between Kanza and America 3 was predestined. America 3 needed the victory to force a sailoff today between Stars & Stripes and Kanza, and keep alive the Cuben’s hopes of an all-A3 defenders final.

But Bill Koch’s camp will have to pull an all-nighter to even come close.

As helmsman Bill Campbell rounded the fourth mark--a stake boat in this instance, as the anchor line for the mark drifted and the race committee replaced it--Kanza broke a mast ram, rendering the vessel helpless to continue.

All America 3 had to do was sail the rest of the course for the victory, and the point that earned the syndicate a berth in the final.

“It’s a big race (today). We’ll have a good share of the team, 16 or 17 of the guys who won’t be racing, working on the boat. It’ll be an all-night affair,” Campbell told ESPN’s Gary Jobson on board Kanza after the breakdown.

Vince Moeyersoms, part of Koch’s design team, said there is an hydraulic mast ram that controls the mast in the fore and aft positions, and attached to the mast ram is a chainplate.

“Basically, this plate, on the first 135-degree reach, failed,” he said.

When the chainplate failed, it crushed the ram up. The mast ram, located just below the deck, was intact, but went through the deck.

“There are two dangers when that happens,” Moeyersoms said. “Suddenly nothing’s holding the mast, it starts moving back and forth and you’re risking damage to the mast. The other danger, by the ram being crushed, you could have endangered the structure of the keel.”

At the fourth mark, there was some confusion whether Kanza knew the stake boat was the mark. David Rosow, A3’s executive vice president, said the crew knew, but by that time the problems on board were all too apparent.

“They knew,” he said. “They were about to round when you hear (the ram break). You could see they were already setting for the jibe.”

Moeyersoms said A3’s repairs to Kanza should be enough to engage Conner in the kind of dogfight their one-on-ones have produced up to now.

“It’ll be all right, it’ll be fixed tonight,” he said, downplaying the damage but conceding that if the break came against Stars & Stripes today, another “Did Not Finish” would be likely.

Chris Dickson may have sailed Nippon with tourniquet applied to its broken boom during the challenger trials, but Moeyersoms said every situation is different.

“The guys would have to look at (finishing the race) carefully,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to get around the course without a mast or a keel.”

But Bill and Kanza’s Bogus Journey began long before the fateful first leg of the three reaching laps. Kanza spotted her stablemate a 2-minute, 16-second lead at the first wing mark, just 10.75 nautical miles into the 20.03 nautical-mile course.

In 9 knots of wind, the boats got off to an even start. But on the first starboard tack off the line, with Kanza in the controlling position, Campbell tacked away. With the move, Kanza gave up the control, appeared to let Koch off the hook way too easily, and Koch never looked back.

Everyone’s a Monday morning sailor, but did Campbell get a bad rap or did he make a bad tack?

Campbell explained that the winds were 305 to 310 degrees off the starting line, and he was trying to hold Koch’s third boat as far left as he could.

“You might say we had our bow even with them,” he said.

In a sudden shift of wind, Kanza tried to roll over her opponent, but ran into bad air and tacked away instead, which enabled America 3 to get its bow out on Kanza.

“At winds about 285 to 290 degrees, he got his bow out,” Campbell said. “Once the guy from leeward bow’s out on you, it’s tough to build speed, and you quickly fall into them.”

Almost as quickly as A3’s brass was drilled about today’s lineup for the most important race of the trials to date.

“The team that has been sailing,” Rosow said, which would mean the “A Team’ Koch announced last week, with Buddy Melges as skipper. “I expect that if it’s light air Bill (Koch) will not be on the boat, if it’s breeze like we’ve had the last couple of days, Bill will be on the boat.”

Kanza and Stars & Stripes split their last two meetings. In Friday’s light winds--Koch said Melges would be the exclusive light-air driver--Kanza lost to Stars & Stripes with Melges at the helm. But that was after Kanza was assessed a penalty turn that Melges had nothing to do with.

In Tuesday’s controversial match-up, where Kanza won after Stars & Stripes was assessed a penalty turn at the end, Melges steered all but three legs--Koch steered in those--in 8 to 12 knots of wind.