SAILING : Winds Clash, Boats Don’t on Lay Day

There was a lay day called in the Mazda World Championship of Match Race Sailing at Long Beach on Friday when the wind shut down after only one round of racing that changed little.

None of the five top skippers raced each other, and all five won their races.

New Zealand’s Chris Dickson remained in first place, with 12 victories and three losses, followed by San Diego’s Paul Cayard, Australia’s Peter Gilmour and New Zealand’s Russell Coutts at 10-5, and Kevin Mahaney of Bangor, Me., at 9 1/2-5.

The 15th round was sailed in a six-knot southerly breeze. Dickson led Ed Baird of St. Petersburg, Fla., across the starting line, stern to bow, then turned into the wind, slowing until Baird committed himself to going left. Dickson then stole Baird’s wind, leaving his opponent stalled and sailing to a comfortable lead.

But by the time three of the five matches in the 16th round had started, the wind had dropped to two or three knots and shifted 30 degrees to southeast, badly skewing the course and providing Gilmour and Cayard with insurmountable leads over Wales’ Eddie Warden-Owen and Mahaney, respectively.

The race committee stopped the race and waited two hours until 4:30 for better wind that never came.

An attempt will be made to sail the last three rounds today before starting the scheduled semifinals. The finals, with $32,250 to the winner, are scheduled for Sunday.

Peter Isler, second-ranked in the world but struggling (7-8) in this event, called Friday’s conditions “a battle between the Catalina Eddy and the sea breeze.”

Isler, who majored in meteorology at Yale, can talk intelligently about the weather, although he can’t do anything about it.