Boat Swap Draws Ire of Designer : America’s Cup: Pedrick disputes need, questions ethics of Conner changing from Stars & Stripes to Young America.

David Pedrick still wears a Stars & Stripes shirt and a Stars & Stripes belt.

“I’m proud of the boat,” he said Sunday. “I’m proud of what we achieved.”

But Dennis Conner won’t have David Pedrick to kick around anymore.

Pedrick, associated with Conner’s last four campaigns over a decade, was the principal designer of the Stars & Stripes boat that won the America’s Cup defender trials, only to be shelved in favor of PACT 95’s Young America for the final match against Team New Zealand. Conner said Stars & Stripes was too slow.

Even before the Kiwis’ Black Magic sailed away from Young America by 2 minutes 45 seconds in the first race Saturday, Pedrick was leading a chorus of skeptics who doubted the switch would help, even if the boat from Maine were faster than Stars & Stripes, because Conner’s crew wouldn’t have enough time to get used to it.

Pedrick didn’t burn his bridge with Conner; he blew it up. He issued a four-page news release decrying not only the wisdom of the switch but the ethics of it.

As Team Stars & Stripes--the crew’s new name--went to sea on Sunday’s day off to sort out more of the new boat’s nuances, Pedrick said, “I don’t think the Stars & Stripes sailors are going to get around the course any faster through five to nine races than they would have by staying with a boat they knew, and it’s been at rather great cost to the character of the event. It’s stepped on people in different places.

“Given eight races each (in the defender finals), we won six and (Young America and Mighty Mary) won three each. That’s not the sign of a slow boat.”

Pedrick conceded that Stars & Stripes’ success was also because of improved tactics and crew work and opponents’ mistakes.

“The whole thing clicked. The sailors were hot. But the speed differences between winning and losing were very small.”

The issue can never be resolved, and Pedrick will never know whether his boat would have been good enough to beat Team New Zealand. But Stars & Stripes did outsail Young America, 3-1, in the defender finals and by one second in one race--a critical result.

Helmsman Paul Cayard said, “We don’t win that race by one second, we don’t have those other races.”

Cayard also thought PACT 95, although 24-12 overall, fell short in technology--the loudly trumpeted backbone of its program--and misfired when it tried wings on its rudder for three races, losing two.

“They tried the rudder wings at the wrong time,” Cayard said. “PACT is a very good boat. It’s easy to steer. But I think more could have been done with it. There’s a lot more (speed) to be had with that boat.”

But can it be done in the next few days, before Team New Zealand wins four more races? And what is the Kiwis’ secret?

No secret. A new rule limited each syndicate to two boats, but rather than following the old development process of progressing from one boat to the next, New Zealand leapfrogged its two boats through an exhaustive testing process, measuring one against the other as changes were applied and picking whichever was currently faster to race.

Since early January, race days or not, it’s been off the dock in tandem at 9 a.m. sharp, 10 a.m. since daylight savings time started. The Kiwis know their boats intimately.

“The hours they put into sailing are remarkable,” Pedrick said.

And probably more than the two American teams put together. Stars & Stripes had no trial boat, nor did Young America until it collaborated with Bill Koch’s Mighty Mary in a futile attempt to knock out Conner.

Ironically, Conner learned as an observer to that collusion that Young America was a better all-round boat than Mighty Mary, which made his decision easier.

America’s Cup Notes

Team Stars & Stripes helmsman Paul Cayard, although apparently in line to skipper Dennis Conner’s next campaign, is leaving his options open. He said Sunday they include another Italian bid that would cash in on his residue popularity from the successful Il Moro di Venezia bid in 1992 and his association with Italian sport shoe manufacturer J.P. Tod. Owner Diego Della Valle said, “I think there is 60% (chance). The (Italian) people love Paul, but people love Paul in Italian boat.” Cayard also has talked with Laurent Esquier, a highly regarded manager of several Cup campaigns, about collaborating in an effort.