Fleet Bertrand Wins First Grand Prix Race : Sailing: He wins by 64 seconds after narrowly avoiding Navy destroyer.

John Bertrand out-sailed everybody except the U.S. Navy in winning the first race Friday of the weekend’s U.S. Formula One Yachting Grand Prix.

Despite a close encounter with a destroyer returning to port on the second of six laps around an 8 1/2-mile course inside San Diego Bay, Bertrand led at all 14 marks and by a comfortable 64 seconds at the finish.

France’s Marc Pajot was second, 12 seconds ahead of Britain’s Harold Cudmore-Chris Law entry, with San Diego’s Dennis Conner and J.J. Isler at the rear. So much for local knowledge.

On another note, Conner’s crew discovered a floating body while sailing around the bay before the race. Apparently, it was that of a Navy sailor who had jumped off the Coronado Bridge and had been in the water several days. The County Medical Examiner did not release further details.

In the competition, the skippers are sailing 52-foot sloops of the same design. Single races are scheduled the next two days at 1:30, after a warm-up race at 11 a.m. The winning boat will receive $40,000 of the $90,000 purse.

The wind wafted as strong as 11 knots and as light as four Friday, often shifting direction, but what made conditions even more tricky was the tidal current flushing the bay.

“The current made both reaches really tight,” said Bertrand, who won three of four events on the inaugural tour last year before sailing with Conner in the America’s Cup. “But every spinnaker we had up was the right one. The guys did an exceptional job on sail trim.”

Bertrand’s crew of 10 includes six from America’s Cup winner America 3, but they had sailed together only twice before Friday.

“We don’t have many disagreements,” Bertrand said. “Every time I say something, they say, ‘Shut up.’ ”

They almost met the destroyer at the second leeward mark. The vessel paused for a few minutes as it came down the bay, then steamed ahead when it figured it could clear the fleet. It slid past barely ahead of Bertrand, who said, “If we had been a little farther down the course, it would have been a problem. As it was, it helped us with the propwash.”

Isler, an Olympic bronze medalist in a 470 dinghy at Barcelona this year, is the first woman skipper to compete in the series, and her unfamiliarity with the larger boat showed.

Isler sailed an aggressive start, leading the fleet down the line toward the pin (left) end, away from the committee boat, then heading upwind at the gun. However, her rivals soon gained favorable positions, leaving her last at every mark.

“The lighter air makes it tougher to get the feel of the helm,” she said. “Our learning curve has to be steeper than anyone else’s. Ideally, we’ll get the breeze we had the past few days.”