Conner Wins, Needs One More Victory to Become the Defender : America’s Cup: Stars & Stripes defeats Mighty Mary by 1:02 to deal mostly female crew’s hopes a severe blow.

Those few chauvinists who suggested that America 3’s Bill Koch erred when he put only one male aboard his previously all-female Mighty Mary on March 18 aren’t saying much after Friday’s defeat at the hands of Team Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes.

This was a huge defeat, and its genesis was a bad tactical call near the last windward mark.

Mighty Mary’s tactician is Dave Dellenbaugh, the experienced sailor Koch believed he needed to get over the hump in the America’s Cup defender trials.

“When we got up near that lay-line, they gave us a present when they tacked early,” Conner said. “We nailed them and, basically, the party was over.”

For Mighty Mary, the party is almost over. If it does not defeat PACT 95’s Young America today, it is eliminated. In that sense, the women control their survival, if not their destiny.

Conner, in contrast, totally controls his own destiny. Friday’s victory put Stars & Stripes into the lead after three of the defender finals’ four rounds. If Stars & Stripes wins its next race Sunday against Young America, Team Conner will defend the America’s Cup against Team New Zealand beginning May 6.

Indeed, because of a complicated set of rules in the defender finals, Conner’s boat is the only one that can advance without going to a sail-off.

A miscalculation was extremely costly to Mighty Mary in Friday’s 62-second loss. The Koch boat, behind by as many as 10 lengths during the first half of the race, had closed to within 18 seconds at the halfway mark and charged up on Stars & Stripes’ stern on the third and last windward leg. It looked to be in position to pass either before or shortly after the mark.

Given a chance to cross behind Stars & Stripes and gain the starboard advantage approaching the mark, Mighty Mary tacked to the left, or lee, side of the leading boat. From this precarious position, Dellenbaugh compounded the problem by calling for a tack before reaching the lay-line to the mark. Skipper Leslie Egnot at first tried to pinch up into the wind, but had to give up and make two extra tacks to round.

“You miss some lay-lines,” said Dawn Riley, America 3’s team captain, “and we missed that lay-line, and Stars & Stripes took full advantage of it.”

After leading by only seconds after the previous mark and much less than that a mere few minutes earlier, Stars & Stripes was a minute ahead and, to paraphrase Conner, the race was over.

The afternoon began with Egnot yelling to Stars & Stripes’ crew in the pre-start that her boat was flying a red protest flag, which America 3seems to carry as standard equipment. Team Conner made its mid-series change, which each boat was allowed, when it was off Tuesday and Wednesday, and America 3was apparently protesting that change.

Conner’s crew acknowledged Egnot with waves, primarily because pitman Josh Belsky was frantically fixing the boom vang before the rope would be needed on the first downwind leg.

“We weren’t too interested in what they had to say,” tactician Tom Whidden said. “We had our repairs to make and we were concerned about getting to the right at the start, which panned out for us.”

Stars & Stripes got the right at the start, eventually built up a nice lead and then watched it erode until. . . .

Mighty Mary’s bubble was burst by a couple of tacks.