Black Magic 1 Steals Conner’s Magic Touch

The best crew and the best boat that America could offer were no match for little New Zealand in the opening race of the America’s Cup.

Team New Zealand’s Black Magic 1, getting some inadvertent help from the spectator fleet, led at every turning mark to rout Dennis Conner’s mermaid boat Young America by 2 minutes 45 seconds on Saturday.

On an overcast day with the boats kicking up plenty of sea spray on the choppy Pacific Ocean, New Zealand got its historic first America’s Cup finals victory. New Zealand, population 3.5 million, is the smallest country ever to challenge for the America’s Cup, and its short history in the regatta is littered with failure at the hands of Conner and his co-helmsman, Paul Cayard.

“There is a long way to go, but that was a good start for us,” said Peter Blake, Team New Zealand’s leader and a crew member on Black Magic 1. “We now know that we are fully competitive with the Americans and can settle down for the big fight ahead.”

Black Magic 1 proved to be a rocket ship on the three upwind legs of the 18.55-mile Pacific Ocean course. It got some help at the fourth mark from the spectator fleet, which forced Young America to tack into air that had been disturbed by Black Magic 1.

The Kiwi lead doubled from 1:22 at the fourth mark to 2:44 at the end of the windward fifth leg.

The second race of the best-of-nine series is scheduled for Monday.

Conner, a four-time America’s Cup winner, is making his sixth appearance in the finals in 21 years. His top-notch crew won the defender series aboard Stars & Stripes. But because Stars & Stripes was considered the slowest of the three U.S. boats, Conner made a deal to use defeated rival PACT 95’s Young America.

That left his crew just one week to learn its way around Young America, which features Roy Lichtenstein’s mural of a mermaid the length of its 75-foot hull.

“The reason we lost today was not because we didn’t know the boat,” Conner said immediately afterward. “The better boat won today. They sailed a little better.”

Conner, who gradually has turned over the steering to Cayard, didn’t touch Young America’s wheel all day.

Cayard admitted making some tactical mistakes, and said that Young America’s electronics package, which helps plot the course and the speed the yacht should be going, blew out on the first tack.

But he doesn’t think the Kiwis are a lock to take the America’s Cup to Auckland, the City of Sails.

“It was a tough day where you really had to know your boat to sail well today,” Cayard said. “We couldn’t have had a more difficult situation for our first race as far as just the waves and all that.

“Getting to know the boat, I don’t think it’s a giant mystery and I’m pretty encouraged by what I saw on the first lap,” Cayard said. “I think the race was pleasantly close and I think we can make this a hell of a series.”

The Kiwis, meanwhile, had two weeks to tune up Black Magic 1 after waltzing over oneAustralia in the challenger finals.

Team New Zealand entered the America’s Cup match with a 37-1 record on the water, amassed both in Black Magic 1 and sister ship Black Magic 2.

That was the same record that Kiwi Magic had in 1986-87, before Conner accused the New Zealanders of cheating by building its boat out of fiberglass, then beat them 4-1 in the challenger finals.

A year later, Conner turned back New Zealand’s rogue challenge with a sly move of his own, using a catamaran to rout the Kiwis’ 132-foot boat in two races. After a protracted court fight, the Cup stayed in San Diego.

In 1992, New Zealand was one win from reaching the America’s Cup finals when it began to crumble under repeated protests over its bowsprit by Cayard’s Italian campaign. New Zealand didn’t win another race, and Italy reached the finals.

The shifting west wind was 13 knots at the start, gradually dropping to eight at the finish. The waves were six to seven feet following a morning storm.

Young America won the start by one second and took the left side of the course. Black Magic 1, skippered by Russell Coutts, took the right side and was ahead the first time the 75-foot yachts crossed on opposite tacks.

It was the first speed test between the boats, and Black Magic 1 appeared to have a slight edge as Coutts steered higher into the wind.

On the windward first leg, Cayard overrode suggestions by both Conner and tactician Tom Whidden that he tack to the left of Black Magic 1 when the boats converged approaching the mark. Instead, he kept going to the right side of the course.

It didn’t take Young America long to close the gap sailing downwind for the first time, making up 19 seconds at the mark. Black Magic 1 stayed in front even though it had trouble with its spinnaker pole.

Going back upwind on the six-leg course, the Kiwis extended their lead to 42 seconds at the halfway point.

“We have to keep sailing our best to beat these guys,” Black Magic 1 sail trimmer Simon Daubney said. “After the second leg we had an opportunity to hang on and let them go to different sides, and we’d just kind of wait for the breeze to come back. It was an easy day to be in front, but it was a pretty tough race.”