Conner Faces New Boat in Cup 2nd Round

SAN DIEGO —  Whatever the aroma off Point Loma, the second round of the America’s Cup defender trials starts today.

Like a latter-day Jean Valjean, Dennis Conner will brave a sewer of a sea to sail his same old Stars & Stripes--the oldest boat left in the competition--against America 3’s two entries three times each in a new series of match races through Feb. 17.

Bill Koch’s “Cubens,” with a third, new boat, America 3, replacing first-round loser Jayhawk, also will race each other three times.

The sailors are saying the broken sewer line hasn’t caused them any problems--but they’re being extra careful about not falling overboard.

More murky was America 3’s strategy. Koch didn’t settle on how he would slot his boats in the rotation until late Friday afternoon. The new boat will replace the unbeaten Defiant in slot B, meeting Stars & Stripes today. Defiant will replace the winless Jayhawk in slot C and race Stars & Stripes on Sunday.

But Koch didn’t plan to say who would be the respective skippers--he or Buddy Melges--until this morning.

“You’ll see on the start of the race each day who the skipper is,” said the multimillionaire industrialist from Wichita, Kan.

Defiant, with Melges as skipper, was 6-0 in the first round, to Stars & Stripes’ 3-3 and the older Jayhawk’s 0-6, with Koch as skipper. Conner remains in slot A.

Victories were worth one point in the first round but will be worth two points in the second round and four in the third, all counting toward qualifying slots for the fourth round starting March 28.

Defiant loses its six points by moving to slot C, but the new America 3 inherits the points to start the second round.

The slots--not the boats nor the skippers--get the points, even if boats change.

Koch further confused the issue by refusing to announce whether Melges would stay on Defiant.

“We are doing this like professional basketball or baseball when it goes to a seven-game series,” Koch said, “and that’s to pick the lineup the day of the race depending on conditions. . . . If it’s a light-air day, Buddy is one of the best light-air helmsmen in the world.”

Buddy probably is a better helmsman in any conditions than anyone else Koch has, although tactician Dave Dellenbaugh is an excellent match racer and earned praise for his skills as Defiant’s starting helmsman in the first round.

A strong possibility is that Koch and Melges--and, perhaps, Dellenbaugh--all will be on whichever of their boats is racing on a given day, since that is the long-range plan, anyway. Why not start now?

“I’ll consider that,” Koch told a reporter. “That is a good suggestion. Thank you.”

Koch’s new boat has sailed only three days and once was inside San Diego Bay just to tune the mast. It didn’t sail at all Thursday because Koch didn’t want to risk it in the storm’s 24-knot winds that day.

Five Cup boats have broken their masts, “and two of them are mine,” Koch said, ruefully.

Koch hopes he is leading with his ace.

Conner isn’t faced with such decisions. Despite an influx of new money from Kodalux Processing Services announced Friday, he has only one boat--although a skeptical corner of the Cup community remains unconvinced that he is not secretly building a second boat somewhere.

Kodalux was described as a “gold level” sponsor, placing it on the top level with Cadillac, American Airlines and Diet Pepsi, who came in for about $3 million apiece and whose patched-up spinnakers have become a familiar sight to Cup followers.

But Kodalux’s backing apparently doesn’t mean a second boat, even if there was time.

Conner’s tactician, Tom Whidden, said, “We have spoken many times of the possibility of a new boat, and that’s not there, really. But I think what it enables us to do is continue our (research and development) program, continue our sail program and to do a lot of things that maybe we have been prohibited (from doing). It will give us a little more freedom to try new ideas.”

It also will buy some new sails. Under his other hat, Whidden is president of North Sails.