Word: conner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Having smiled on Conner on Tuesday, God was in a different mood for the fifth race, the next day. Just 45 min. before it was time to summon the yachts to the start, Liberty suffered a broken jumper strut, a hydraulically powered device that angles the mast to increase sail power. As a fast motorboat rushed a new part from dockside, New Yorkers Tom Rich and Scott Vogel struggled 60 ft. above the deck to cut away the faulty strut. The damage was repaired 12 min. before the start, but Liberty still had to raise a jib, and its crew...
Assessing performance up to this point, the experts reckoned that Liberty performed best in winds of 15 to 20 knots, while Australia II was the faster boat either below or above that range. For the fourth race the breeze was made to order for Liberty. And Dennis Conner, who is probably the world's finest 12-meter skipper, handled his boat masterfully. He won the start from Bertrand by 6 sec. and never let up, skillfully covering the Australian, repeatedly pouncing on the wind shifts he needed to carry him ahead. After two shifts on the first leg, Conner...
...that point Conner chose to ignore one of the cardinal rules of match racing, failing to keep Liberty between his opponent and the next mark. "We decided to look for wind," said Conner. It was Bertrand who found it. As they rounded the first mark, the Aussies led by 23 sec., having made up a whole minute. Liberty's strut broke again, and Conner was unable to trim his main properly; by the end Australia II had a 1 min. 47 sec. lead...
...knot winds from the northwest. Bertrand lost the start again, this time by 7 sec., but soon into the first tack spotted something his opponent had not: dark patches of water, indicating a wind buildup on the left side of the course. He sailed for it, again uncovered by Conner, who said later, "We missed it." As Liberty rounded the first mark 2 min. 29 sec. behind Australia II, Gary Jobson, a winning crew member in Ted Turner's 1977 defense, exclaimed, "This is a disaster!" The flying bridge of the New York Yacht Club boat emptied...
...last-ditch effort, as Bertrand made his final rounding of the windward mark more than 3 min. ahead, Conner tried to sail over his opponent, get to leeward of Australia II and force it to head back up to windward. He was about a minute too late. By the end of the race, in constantly shifting winds of up to 19 knots from the southwest, Bertrand led by a whopping 3 min. 25 sec. The series was tied 3-3. From London to Perth, the betting was on Australia...