SAILING : Bad Start Slows Stars & Stripes

A chagrined Dennis Conner and a woman on a sailboard were among about 400 boats starting the 47th Newport-Ensenada International Yacht Race in light winds off Newport Beach on Friday.

There were two starting lines side by side to accommodate the large fleet. Conner, sailing the 60-foot Stars & Stripes catamaran that holds the race record of 9 hours 7 minutes, appeared to be off to a runaway start at the noon gun, but a few minutes later realized he had not started from the line assigned to the Ocean Racing Catamaran Assn.

He returned to restart 8 minutes 15 seconds late, but was still expected to be first to finish overall. Even so, he probably wouldn’t have threatened his record. Instead of strong northwesterlies that had been forecast, the wind was only about 6 knots from the south.

Lanee Butler of Aliso Viejo, the U.S. women’s sailboard representative in the 1992 Olympics, was not an official entry but took a half-hour’s head start toward Ensenada in a fund-raising effort for her ’96 Olympic campaign.