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Rough sailing Big-spenders fare well as America's Cup gets underway
Posted: Monday October 18, 1999 11:14 AM
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- Wealthiest bid Prada lost a man overboard and veteran Dennis Conner got a scare from a first-time team when the long contest for the America's Cup got underway Monday. Auckland, New Zealand, turned on a perfect spring morning for the start of the first races of the elimination series to decide who will take on the defending home team for yachting's most prized trophy in February 2000. But by afternoon the Pacific island nation's notoriously fickle weather had turned, with the wind regularly shifting in direction and from 6 to 12 knots in strength. Yachstmen found themselves navigating through rain squalls and choppy waters on the two challenger courses in the Hauraki Gulf. The big-spending favorites fared well, with the New York Yacht Club's Young America, skippered by Ed Baird, and the St. Francis Yacht Club's AmericaOne with Paul Cayard at the helm securing two wins from Monday's two starts. The day's most exciting moment came when Prada's Simone de Mari lost his balance and plunged into the gulf's icy waters as he tried to secure a gennaker as the Italian team rounded the leeward mark of its 2nd race. After slowing down to fish him back on board, Prada recovered quickly to defeat Japan's Nippon Challenge and join the leaders with two points. "We didn't have one of our best roundings," Prada's skipper Francesco de Angelis said afterwards. "We didn't plan that maneuver well and it was a big mess. Luckily, this time, we were able to clean it up quickly." Other team representatives said the weather conditions, combined with crews' performances under the pressure of race conditions for the first time, made their races difficult. "Conditions were very shifty and today was a tricky day," AmericaOne tactician John Kostecki Kostecki told a news conference. "It wasn't a real straightforward day, but I think that's what we can expect here for more races to come." In his only race for the day, Conner, sailing in his eighth America's Cup competition, had a clear lead of 1 minute, 17 seconds over the French team at the 2nd windward mark when his boat Stars and Stripes lost its spinnaker halyard. Le Defi Francais was able to claw back more than one minute on the last leg and took Conner down to the wire. In the end, the Americans scraped over the line to win by 9 seconds and secure 1 point. The French team had a convincing win over Young Australia in its afternoon race to finish the day with 1 point. Hawaii's Abracadabra 2000 and Nippon also finished with 1 point. Teams which failed to score were the San Francisco Yacht Club's America True, Switzerland's Fast 2000, the Spanish challenge and Young Australia. The Australians and Stars and Stripes had byes and raced only once each on Monday. In more than 700 races which will decide the America's Cup challenger, the 11 teams competing score one point for each win in the first of three round-robins, four points in the second, nine in the third. A finals series will decide the winner, which will meet the Team New Zealand in a best-of-regatta for the America's Cup. The New Zealanders, who have elected not to have a defender's competition, practiced Monday on their two new yachts on a separate course, also in Hauraki Gulf.
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