AMERICA’S CUP : Conner Takes On Historic Team of Women

SAN DIEGO — Weather permitting, the 29th America’s Cup starts today with a race featuring Dennis Conner, who needs no introduction, against 16 women who do.

Conner was on “Good Morning America” Wednesday with Kevin Mahaney of PACT 95 and Leslie Egnot of the America 3women’s team, who represented his rivals in the Citizen Cup defender trials.

“Kevin Mahaney and myself were sitting down and Dennis Conner arrived a bit later,” Egnot said. “I’d never met him before and was looking forward to it, and he came and sat down right next to me--and he didn’t say anything. He did say hello to (hostess) Paula Zahn rather charmingly.

“Obviously, he wasn’t going to say anything to me, so I tapped him on the knee and said, ‘By the way, my name is Leslie, we haven’t met before.’ He just sort of mumbled something and that was it. That was my first meeting with Dennis Conner.”

Her second will be at 12:15 today when she steers the old America 3boat against Conner’s new Stars & Stripes in what the women’s patron, Bill Koch, describes as “a very historical event.” Koch is the Kansas billionaire who led the campaign that outspent and outmaneuvered Conner to defend the Cup for the San Diego Yacht Club in 1992. This time he elected to field an all-female crew.

Because the third defender, PACT 95, needed more time to repair its boat, which was damaged while ashore in last week’s storm, the first round-robin of the defender trials was rearranged to delay Young America’s debut as long as possible. Stars & Stripes will meet America 3in the first three daily races through Saturday, then Young America will race the women Sunday and then one or the other in six consecutive races through Jan. 20.

“We’re ready to go,” Egnot said. “We can’t wait.”

It seems that the women will not be easily intimidated or discouraged--not by Conner or by the new boats sailed by their rivals. Until their new boat arrives next month, they must use the one that became obsolete as soon as it won in ’92.

J.J. Isler, who will steer for the start and call tactics today, said, “We see that as an opportunity to get that last ounce of speed out of that old boat--and if it’s a poker game, we’ll see those other guys putting their cards on the table first.”

Besides, the women have been racing each other in two of Koch’s old boats since April. Conner has sailed his new boat only 40 hours and Mahaney and his crew had only six days aboard Young America before the waterspout struck his compound.

“I think the odds are much in our favor,” Egnot said.

And if the men’s boats are faster at the outset, there is even a positive spin for that: “It would be very good if they were faster than us,” Egnot said. “We need to push ourselves as hard as we can.”

The women are already weary of discussing the implications of their presence, the first for a female crew, in the competition; they’d rather talk about winning.

Egnot, 31, born in South Carolina and raised in New Zealand since age 10, won an Olympic silver medal at Barcelona in the 470 dinghy class, while Isler, 31, collected the bronze.

What they do talk about is lunch. Courtenay Becker-Dey’s husband, Jim Dey, will be making it.

“He does the shopping, he makes the sandwiches,” Becker-Dey said.

In the last two Whitbread Round-the-World Races, women showed they could handle big boats in far tougher conditions than they’ll ever see off Point Loma. Dawn Riley, a veteran of both those campaigns, also is a member of the team but the talent is so deep that she won’t even be on the boat today.

Egnot, Isler, Becker-Dey, Riley and Annie Nelson will rotate through the three afterguard positions of helmsman, tactician and navigator.

The plan is to rotate all 32 women through the 16 crew positions, at least in the four trial rounds ending March 12.

How Conner will approach today’s race is an interesting question. With Isler steering America 3for the start, Conner will be opposing the wife of his TV show co-host, Peter Isler. This is old stuff to Conner, but the women are clearly excited.

“It means so much to me to be on the boat for the first race,” Egnot said. “I still have to pinch myself that it is really happening.”