Would Dennis, Bill Work as Partners?

After beating Bill Koch’s Kanza in Monday’s sailoff to qualify for the America’s Cup defender finals, Dennis Conner told about an experience on his regular pre-dawn walk with tactician Tom Whidden two days earlier.

“Our path leads us by Bill’s house,” Conner said. “It was still dark and just jokingly I said, ‘Good morning, Bill,’ and Tom said, ‘Have a good one. I’m sure you’re gonna win.’ ”

Koch’s two boats were racing each other that day.

“And then,” Conner continued, “we heard, ‘Good morning, Dennis. Good morning, Tom.’ He got us good.”

Sitting next to Conner, Koch laughed and said Conner is “still the king.” And Conner said what he has said many times, that Koch “is good for the America’s Cup.”

Conner and Koch, who start the best-of-13 defender finals Saturday, may not be best buddies but, aside from a few bumps and scrapes on the race course, their mutual admiration has taken George L. Schuyler’s ideal of “friendly competition” in the America’s Cup beyond reason.

Their palsy-walsy behavior could lead to a Conner-Koch alliance that would be intimidating for the challengers.

The worst scenario for whoever survives the New Zealand-Il Moro di Venezia Louis Vuitton Cup final is that Conner will win the defender trials and borrow Koch’s America 3 boat for the match.

That would put the defenders’ best sailor on what appears to be the defenders’ best boat--a flexibility the challengers were denied. Both of Koch’s boats--his third and fourth--were delivered long after the challengers had to commit their final boats in January. This represents a significant advantage in a new class where designers are wishing they had known then what they all know now.

While there might be more satisfaction in beating Conner, the Kiwis or Italians might have a better chance against Buddy Melges and Koch’s technology than Conner’s formidable mystique.

Conner’s original plan called for a combination of mystique and technology.

Stars & Stripes executive director Jerry La Dow said, “It was never anticipated that we would have only one boat.”

A couple of times late last year, especially when Cadillac came in with another large cash infusion, it seemed another boat was close.

How close?

“Pretty close,” La Dow said, “but it would have been an enormous financial obligation. It probably would have buried us.”

With a basic International America’s Cup Class boat costing $3 million, plus $2 million for sails, support and such, Stars & Stripes already was headed for a deficit.

“That’s the reason we’re in the Whitbread (Round the World Race) and all these other things--to get our bills paid,” La Dow said.

And while most people involved dreaded the prospect of an all-Koch defender finals, Koch was hardly to blame for ganging up on Conner.

Tom Ehman, general manager of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, said the idea of allowing a syndicate to enter more than one boat was conceived to preserve a degree of competition as prospective defenders dropped out.

As Ehman said: “Even before Bill Koch was involved.”

“There could have been two boats from Team Dennis Conner.”

Conner said one drawback in Monday’s victory is that “it’ll make me spend more money. My roommate here (Whidden), the first thing he says is, ‘Now that we’re going on we’ll need some more sails.’ ”

Whidden, also president of North Sails, told Conner: “This is gonna cost you bigtime.”

But it will cost Koch more.

“We have a whole series of changes we’d like to make if we can get ‘em done in time,” Koch said, “(including) a new mast, some new things to put on the boat, to try to get every ounce of speed out of whichever boat we pick.

“We don’t have time to test ‘em, but we’re very confident of our testing procedures in the tank and wind tunnel. We would like to have a lot more time to test it on the water, but that’s run out.

“We’re gonna optimize our boat to have the highest probability of beating Dennis.”

After three months of racing and more than a year of testing, Koch said he still isn’t sure what will be best.

“We designed America 3 for the wind studies we had done and we designed Kanza for the wind studies PACT (Partnership for America’s Cup Technology) had done,” he said. “We found there were some holes still in America 3 and Kanza, and we modified America 3 to fill those holes.

“We were just now looking at what the wind conditions have been for April, and we’re finding that the wind is 2% to 5% less than what it historically has been. There’s an El Nino (sea condition) out there and the water temperature is five degrees higher than normal, which reduces the temperature gradient.

“So we’re scratching our heads trying to figure out where we have the best odds of winning races--in the lighter air end or medium or heavier? That’s the $65-million question.”

Conner said, “The wind will have something to do with it. Bill’s boats seem to go faster when the wind comes up. If we experience a little spell of light air, it could be pretty interesting.”