Stars & Stripes Takes the Fizz Out of Koch : America’s Cup: Conner outmaneuvers America 3 to cut deficit to 3-1. Kiwis top Il Moro.
Stars & Stripes’ 39-second victory over America 3 Thursday was only its first in four races of the America’s Cup defender trials, but it’s enough to give Bill Koch the cold sweats all over again.
New Zealand should be more comfortable with its 3-1 lead than Koch is with his, although the Kiwis would never admit it, even after blowing out Il Moro di Venezia by 2 minutes 26 seconds.
The Italians face steep odds of having to win four of five in the challengers’ best-of-9 finals. All Conner has to do is take six of nine from America 3 in the defenders’ best-of-13 set.
Some people thrive on those kind of odds. Koch’s colossus has had Conner on the ropes more times than Rocky I-through-V over the last three months, but Dennis simply takes a flailing and keeps on sailing.
“There’s no quit in these guys,” he says of his crew, whose attitude reflects his own.
Thursday their intensity was pumped up an extra notch. Leading America 3 toward the starting line after an aggressive prestart joust, Conner, wired for sound, said, “This is gonna be nice . . . perfect, perfect.”
With 10 seconds to go, he was at full speed running the line toward the left, or pin, end where the better wind would be found. Better yet, a westerly sea breeze building from 6 to 10 knots had started to flatten the waves to only a foot--the smooth sailing that Stars & Stripes prefers.
“We got him, guys!” Conner exclaimed.
As the gun sounded, Conner powered upwind as America 3 starting helmsman Dave Dellenbaugh was forced to tack away out of his the backwind and sail the other way.
After a few minutes, however, some concern: “Strange tactics on his part to go over there like that . . . why would they be doing that? . . . It looks like we’re ahead, doesn’t it?”
But a minute later: “He looks like he’s ahead now.”
Indeed he was. America 3 helmsman Buddy Melges had steered off into a right-hand wind shift that gave him a four-boat-length lead when they converged.
But after forcing Stars & Stripes back to the left, the wind swung back that way, with the Cuben brain trust still believing the right was right.
“They chose not to cover,” Conner said.
Koch said, “While we were thinking about it, the opportunity evaporated. We made a fundamental error.”
Next time they crossed, Stars & Stripes was two lengths ahead and stayed in front the rest of the day.
That wasn’t the only error America 3 made. Weekend sailors make better mark roundings than their first two Thursday.
At the first, Conner powered down on them to force them to go behind him to round, then the current pushed them off the layline and they needed two extra tacks to get around.
Stars & Stripes led by only 11 seconds but quickly stretched out to 62 seconds downwind when the Cubens set too small a spinnaker.
“Why are they using that thing?” Conner said.
At the mark, Conner rounded and tacked quickly to cross in front of America 3, forcing it off the line from the mark and into a slow rounding.
By the sixth, reaching leg, the lead was 1:17 and Conner was starting to relax. He turned to the days’s 17th man, George Nicholson of new sponsor Televisa, and said, “Whattaya think, George . . . interesting?”
Melges steered until the reaching legs, when he was 1:25 behind and handed off to Koch. Coincidence or not, that’s when America 3 started chipping away at Stars & Stripes’ lead--although Koch gave it back to Melges after a sloppy jibe on the last downwind leg.
Conner said afterward, “They were coming after us all day. They were quite a bit faster than we were . . . on that last beat. They were coming, coming, coming. They have a heck of a boat there.
“We’re very grateful to take this win, not only for ourselves but for all the people pulling for us around the country.”
Conner and Koch both know who still has the faster boat, but Conner said, “If we can coax the most out of the boat and get some conditions that are not too unbearable . . . In smooth water they’re about 20 seconds a beat (upwind leg) faster, and when it’s rougher they’re 45 or 50 seconds a beat faster.”
New Zealand was never threatened, extending its lead on every leg--once it got off the starting line.
The current is still giving fits to the world’s smartest sailors, and this time it was the Kiwis realizing they had mis-timed their run to the line and were going to arrive at the pin-end buoy ahead of schedule, with Il Moro coming on from behind, leaving them no way to escape.
If they crossed early, they’d have to circle back and restart. If they turned away below the buoy, Il Moro skipper Paul Cayard would roll away to a big advantage.
“We were in a lot of trouble,” skipper Rod Davis said. “With the tide against us, it was a little difficult. We had to shoot up to miss the mark and hope the gun went off. Paul came in at freight-train speed and I wondered, ‘What’s he gonna try here?’ ”
Instead, Cayard decided he might be in trouble, too, and tacked away to the right, giving Davis the chance to head up and slip around the mark like a snake.
“We missed the mark by around 18 inches,” Davis said.
Navigator Mike Quilter indicated that distance to the following umpires with a spread of his hands--the same umpires who had taken away the Kiwis’ one-second victory over Il Moro three weeks earlier for touching a finishing mark.
Cayard told reporters, “No other boat could have done that start. You’ve all noted that the Kiwi boat can go very, very high (into the wind) and slow when it needs to and wants to, and they used all that ability to make that start work. (Davis) was in the coffin corner down there, and the fact he was able to get up and squeeze around the mark, I’m sure he was dialing all those wheels and probably looking for some more wheels.”
Il Moro might be looking for some more “wheels,” too. Now 3-7 against New Zealand overall, its only victories were by one second this week, by default when the Kiwis finished one second in front but touched the finishing mark and way back in January when Cayard suggested they sandbagged the race to him with a suspicous series of mistakes.
The challengers have today off.
Cayard said, “I’ve got five more races to do something about it.”
