Yachting: Conner points finger at TV boat collision

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Dennis Conner is questioning whether a bump with a television crew's rubber boat 24 hours before led to the stern of his America's Cup boat exploding yesterday.

The king of the America's Cup is now in a race with the clock to repair the back of his boat, which peeled open for no immediately apparent reason before the start of Stars & Stripes' race with Prada.

If the team of boat-builders cannot meet the deadline to have the boat racing again by noon on Wednesday, Conner could face a serious battle to stay in this America's Cup.

It would be strange if Conner does not make the top six semifinals next month. But right now, Stars & Stripes are fifth on the table, only three points ahead of their next opponents, Young America, in seventh.

Forfeiting nine-point races would strangle their chances of survival.

Conner last night explained the damage to his only boat - but could only guess at how it happened.

"The bulkhead that holds the running backstay blocks to the hull fractured from the hull itself. So when the blockhead was not attached to the hull anymore, the whole works folded up like a tin can," he said.

With a loud boom, the deck of the cockpit lifted up, from the back of the boat to the mainsheet traveller - an area of about 2 sq m.

"It's hard to know exactly what causes this sort of thing. Although there is some conjecture on my part .... we hit a TV boat there yesterday. It seems kind of a coincidence," Conner said.

"We had been sailing in 35 knots of wind and rough seas, then all of a sudden in smooth seas with a relatively moderate wind, it failed today."

In other words, Conner believes a collision with the inflatable boat in the pre-start on Saturday could have weakened his hull's core.

"We didn't see it yesterday, but little carbon fractures are hard to see," he said.

The jury granted Stars & Stripes a 48-hour delay, starting at noon today, to make the repairs. Conner was uncertain whether the deadline could be met.

"I think it's still hard to know. But it's a serious fracture. Carbon is a really amazing fibre ... but it takes some time to cure.

"It's never fun to go through this in the America's Cup."

The luckless Swiss boat Be Happy suffered the same problem in the first round robin, and took five days to fix it.

Conner was on the campaign's tender when the accident happened - he has not sailed on the boat since round one.

"I'm pretty comfortable with the way things have been going. We've not proven to be the fastest boat, but we were making strides to close the distances."

America True's victory over AmericaOne was overshadowed by other syndicates' misfortunes yesterday.

The Trues pulled off a classic win, overtaking their fellow San Francisco crew halfway through the race after a tactical blunder by Paul Cayard's afterguard.

Cayard produced a textbook start, but America True helmsman John Cutler kept in touch. Then AmericaOne misjudged where the mark was on the second beat, overshot it by 200m, and the Trues cruised by.

To add insult to injury, AmericaOne had to cut away yet another spinnaker on the run, losing by 20s.

Young America pulled themselves back into winning mode with a 2m 10s win over Abracadabra, while the Spanish kept hold of sixth spot with a 42s victory over Young Australia.