AMERICA’S CUP : Conner Forces America 3 Mistakes, Wins

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 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 the steeper odds of having to win four of five in the challengers’ best-of-nine finals. Conner has to take six of nine from America 3 in the defenders’ best-of-13 set.

Some people thrive on those kinds of odds. Koch has had Conner on the ropes a lot the last three months, but Conner keeps coming back.

“There’s no quit in these guys,” he says of his crew.

Their intensity was pumped up an extra notch Thursday. Leading America 3 toward the starting line after an aggressive pre-start 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 six 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 sailed upwind as America 3 starting helmsman Dave Dellenbaugh was forced to tack the other way.

After a few minutes, however, there was some concern in Conner’s voice: “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 America 3 forced Stars & Stripes back to the left, the wind swung back that way, though the America 3 brain trust still believed it was going right.

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.

And that wasn’t the only error America 3 made. Weekend sailors make better mark roundings than their first two Thursday.

At the first, Conner slowed to force them to go behind him to round. Then the current pushed them off line, 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 America 3’s crew set too small a spinnaker.

At the mark, Conner rounded and tacked quickly to cross in front of America 3, forcing it off the line and into a slow rounding.

By the sixth leg, the lead was 1:17 and Conner was starting to relax.