SAILING : Mahaney, Dickson Tie for No. 1

An Olympic silver medal and $32,250 would be a pretty good month for a guy who insists he does it all for fun.

“I wasn’t really planning to sail this regatta,” says Kevin Mahaney of Bangor, Me., who is tied with New Zealand’s Chris Dickson at 7-2 for the lead after the first round-robin in the $135,000 Mazda World Championship of Match Race Sailing at Long Beach.

Mahaney, who with crew Jim Brady and Doug Kern won a silver medal in the Soling class at Barcelona, won all five of his races Wednesday for seven in a row. He beat Dickson, the three-time world champion, by 2 minutes 17 seconds in a light-air race.

The second round-robin will be run today and Friday, followed by the semifinals Saturday and finals Sunday.

Mahaney won the fleet-racing phase of the Soling class at the Olympics but lost to Denmark’s Jesper Bank in the match-racing sail offs. He said he wasn’t disappointed to miss the gold.

“The Olympic experience is what we wanted,” he said. “The medal really didn’t matter.

“That’s the same way I feel about this event. It’s a chance to sail with the best sailors in the world. I’m just happy to be where I am. We had some lucky breaks today.”

Sailing Notes

Wednesday’s closest race was a one-second victory by New Zealand’s Russell Coutts over San Diego’s Paul Cayard. Coutts slipped in front while on Cayard’s wind near the downwind finish. . . . Australia’s Peter Gilmour, tied for third with Cayard and Coutts at 6-3, was deprived of a victory for the second day in a row by a race committee error. Although he and Peter Isler (4-5) were recalled for premature starts, Isler did a penalty turn for a pre-start foul to give Gilmour a commanding lead before the committee called off the race, for reasons not made clear. . . . The experiment of running the races close enough to shore for spectators is causing problems. The best wind is farther out in the harbor, out of the lee of Pier J. . . . Chris Dickson says “the options are open,” but indications are he won’t sail for Japan in the America’s Cup again and is putting together a syndicate in New Zealand, but not with Sir Michael Fay. “I would not be sailing for (his ‘86-87 boss) Michael Fay in an owner-dictated program,” Dickson says. “As long as there are situations like skippers--Rod Davis--being fired by team management, I’m not interested.”