Conner Surrenders Helm for Leg Two

The second leg of the Whitbread Round the World Race started last weekend with an altered American presence and the first man-overboard incident.

When the fleet of 14 boats--four 80-to-85-foot maxis and 10 Whitbread 60s--left Punta Del Este, Uruguay, Dennis Conner’s entry sailed without him and the U.S. Women’s Challenge had a new skipper.

Conner sailed the first leg from England, but didn’t plan to sail the second, which is the longest of the race’s six legs: 7,558 miles eastward past Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to Fremantle, Australia. He probably will sail another leg next spring.

Nance Frank’s longtime dream died in despair when two of her crew quit after arriving in Uruguay late last month. A few days later Frank announced she was withdrawing the boat from the race for lack of money.

She said, with some bitterness, “Because American corporations chose to support foreign teams, rather than these hard-working American women, we just can’t move on.”

But later, according to USA Today, it was learned that Frank and some crew members had been ordered off the boat by the owners, Ocean Ventures Management Ltd., which put the boat back into the race with Dawn Riley as skipper. One of Frank’s crew members, Susan Chiu of Los Angeles, was quoted as saying, “If we were on the high seas, this would be called piracy.”

But others felt the changes gave the crew some needed talent. Riley, from Detroit, was a member of the all-woman crew aboard England’s Maiden in the 1989-90 race and won a spot on victorious America 3’s backup boat in last year’s America’s Cup at San Diego. Three new crew members include Renee Mehl of the United States, leaving four Americans and seven women from six other countries on the boat.

After the layover in Uruguay for rest and repairs--Conner’s 60 needed a new boom--the boats retained their race positions based on their times for the first leg. Grant Dalton’s New Zealand maxi had little more than a three-hour lead on Chris Dickson’s 60 Tokio. The smaller but water-ballasted 60s could benefit from anticipated stronger winds on this leg.

Dickson momentarily lost his longtime sailing sidekick, bowman Ken Hara, overboard during a spinnaker change. The boat quickly turned around and Hara was recovered unharmed.

Conner’s boat, with New Zealand’s Brad Butterworth in command, was fourth among the 60s on the first leg and has 13 hours 21 minutes to make up on Tokio.

Said Butterworth: “The boats will be sailing fast all the time, they are going to be wet (on deck) all the time and they are going to be exciting to sail. We will get the odd snow shower and see a few icebergs.”

But they won’t be able to sail too far south because of the requirement to pass Prince Edward Island to starboard. The real iceberg adventure will come on the fourth leg in February and March.

Sailing Notes

WHITBREAD--Race veteran Roger Nilson had to resign as skipper of European entry Intrum Justia because of a knee injury that required surgery and treatment for severe infection. England’s Lawrie Smith was brought in to replace him. . . . Ross Field’s Yamaha, sailing for Japan and New Zealand, won the Omega award for the first leg for a run of 343.69 miles in a 24-hour period. That should be topped on the second leg. . . . Odessa, the Russian entry, started a week late and lost another eight days to her nearest rival by encountering severe head winds. Its crew knows hardship. They worked for two years without pay to prepare the boat, and when their propane ran out they ate cold beans and mashed potatoes the last week of the first leg. Skipper Anatoly Verba said the second-leg start is “the start of our program.” . . . Another thumbs-up is due Britain’s Dolphin & Youth, skippered by Brian Humphries. All crewmen are younger than 23 or have overcome some disability to sail. . . . ESPN will show a half-hour of highlights of the first leg Sunday, Dec. 5, at 2:30 p.m.

ULTRALITES--The ULDB 70s’ season championship came down to the last mile of the seventh and last race--the Long Beach Yacht Club’s run to Cabo San Lucas. The first four boats were only 22 minutes apart, and a third place by John DeLaura’s Transpac winner, Silver Bullet, was enough to secure the title over another Santa Cruz 70, Brack Duker’s first-place Evolution. It was the first year an ULDB had won both the Transpac and the season title, and DeLaura now owns two of each. Wind for the early part of the Cabo race was so light that Roy Disney’s Pyewacket and Peter Tong’s Orient Express dropped out--the latter for fear of missing a business meeting in Kansas City. The leaders finished about four hours short of five days. Evolution was four minutes ahead of Mike Campbell’s Andrews 70 Victoria, followed by Silver Bullet, 2 minutes 15 seconds in front of Blake Quinn’s Holua.

NOTEWORTHY--A crew of youngsters from the Harbor Hills Housing Project appeared at a reception at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum the other day to introduce the museum’s Topsail sailing program for inner-city youth. The Harbor Hills group took a tuneup sail Oct. 30 on the museum’s 70-foot schooner Swift, once owned by actor James Cagney. . . . Many of the leading ocean racers in the 50-foot class have broken away from the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet, which cut their handicaps by about 12 seconds a mile, to form their own California Fifties organization. The new group could rival the ULDB 70s for big-boat competition on the West Coast.

INTERNATIONAL--There are more than 50 entries for the first Pan-Pacific Yacht Race from five points in the world to Osaka, Japan. Starting dates are calculated for a competitive finish. U.S. entries will start from Marina del Rey, April 24. Other starting places include Brisbane, Australia; Shanghai, China; Pusan, South Korea, and Vladivostok, Russia. There are two classes based on length: 12-15 meters and 15-18 meters. Entry fee is $500. Any boat finishing within a specified time limit will win 1 million yen ($10,000). Entry details: (310) 821-0555.

OLYMPICS--There’s no suitable place to sail near Atlanta, so competition will be based at Savannah on the Atlantic coast, which is no bargain. Because of shallow water and strong currents in nearby areas, most classes will compete on courses 6 to 11 miles from the marina and be transported there by barge.