Weather May Make Conner Cup Winner

SAN DIEGO — For all of the brouhaha about PACT 95 and America 3 ganging up on a common enemy, that being Team Dennis Conner, they are now confronted by another neither can control.

The weather.

If what happened here Tuesday happens again today, Conner’s Stars & Stripes will defend America’s Cup against Team New Zealand beginning May 6.

And what happened Tuesday?

Absolutely nothing. Light and shifty winds caused the abandonment of the scheduled race between Stars & Stripes and Mighty Mary of America 3.

And what if absolutely nothing happens again today?

According to the defender selection rules, the regatta must be completed by April 26. That’s today. If today’s race is also abandoned, the rules call for scoring to revert to the last completed round of a given series. Team Conner had the lead at the end of the last completed round, the third round, of the finals.

Consequently, Conner can advance in one of two ways today. He can advance with a victory over Mighty Mary or he can advance with an abandonment.

Unless the rules, as written very clearly, are changed.

“We’re examining each of the provisions to see what should happen if the complete 12-race series is not finished,” said Chuck Nichols, the AC ’95 president, “Our objective is to get the race in.”

Given decent sailing weather, which would render the deadline moot, the two boats will race today with Mighty Mary needing a victory to eliminate Conner and advance to a one-race sail-off with PACT 95’s Young America.

Indeed, the fact that PACT 95 needs a victory from Mighty Mary has changed its usually non-controversial role in the acrimonious bickering between Conner and Bill Koch, syndicate head of America 3, on the defender side. The bottom line was that neither PACT 95 nor America 3had a chance to make the America’s Cup races if either lost its last fourth-round race to Team Conner.

When Mahaney’s Young America took the water Monday, it was flying good-luck panties sent by the mostly female Mighty Mary crew.

When Mighty Mary took the race course for Tuesday’s ultimately abandoned race, it was flying a pair of PACT 95 boxer shorts.

If superstitious charms were the extent of this relationship, it would be considered good, clean fun. However, besides dining together at a barbecue Sunday night, the supposedly rival teams practice together and share weather information.

And these teams were unabashed about their relationship.

“It was surprising, really an eye-opener, how much it helped us to have another boat out there,” PACT 95 syndicate head John Marshall said after Monday’s victory. “Even if it was only for an hour.”

That “trial horse” was Mighty Mary of America 3. Marshall also talked of how A-3 helicopters had helped with the forecasting of wind shifts.

Tuesday began with the flag officers of the San Diego Yacht Club writing a sternly worded memo to the America’s Cup 95 Defense Committee, threatening the collaborators with disqualification. Ironically, the defense committee is an SDYC organization.

Then came a revised memo.

“It was less severe,” said Michael Morton, the SDYC commodore. “There will be no disqualification.”

In truth, the commodores themselves have no power to order a disqualification.

The day ended with a jammed gathering at one end of the media center, with AC ‘95’s Nichols explaining that his group would be studying the rules into the evening and morning, trying to determine what they meant. Such a statement in the world of America’s Cup usually translates to determining how rules can be changed.