Dead Calm Is Real Calamity for Koch

Either nothing happened or a lot happened on Day 1 of the America’s Cup defender final series Saturday.

I haven’t figured it out for sure.

Simply put, Dennis Conner won because he didn’t lose.

And Bill Koch lost because he didn’t win.

After Day 1, competition is dead even. Neither Stars & Stripes nor America 3 has either a victory or a loss.

The race was washed out by nice weather. It couldn’t happen in any other sport. Baseball games are lost to torrential rain, and football is played in blizzards. Nothing gets canceled because the weather is too nice.

Except yachting.

You put millions of dollars worth of boat onto the water, and it goes nowhere if the wind is not blowing. Thousands of dollars of sails flap helplessly and hopelessly.

You cannot win an Indianapolis 500 without fuel. You cannot sail a yacht without wind.

Wind is fuel.

Fuel ran out for America 3 as it neared the second windward leg. Cup rules dictate that the third mark must be reached 2 hours 13 minutes into the race. America 3, skippered by Buddy Melges, was in the neighborhood long before the deadline, but it couldn’t get in the door.

Conner never even got into the neighborhood. He and his colleagues aboard Stars & Stripes committed a monumental blunder at the start and never recovered. Stars & Stripes crossed the starting line early--like maybe four seconds early--and restarted 46 seconds behind.

Given different circumstances, like the race continuing to its conclusion, and this beginning to this series would have taken monstrous proportions. It was the Freddy Merkle missing second base of starts. It was Shoemaker misjudging the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. This was stunningly un-Conner-istic.

Conner would be down 0-1 in a best-of-13 series that figures to be tough enough for him to win anyway.

The man cannot afford to give anything away, especially the first race of the series.

Talk about racing luck.

The sun was literally shining on Conner Saturday. He did not lose a race he could not win. He did not lose a race he took himself out of before it even officially began. The way it ended was almost bigger than a victory.

It wouldn’t surprise me if champagne was flowing in the Stars & Stripes compound Saturday night.

Here’s to the wind that wasn’t.

Over in the America 3 compound, it had to be the exact opposite. You don’t toast to a victory that wasn’t.

I’ll tell you how Koch and Melges must have been feeling. They had to be feeling like a baseball manager with about a 13-0 lead and the rain pouring down in the top of the fifth inning. Make it with two out in the top of the fifth.

They were that close to getting to that mark.

Early in that third leg, someone expressed the notion that Conner’s best shot at not losing was the time limit. However, it seemed preposterous. This was the 146th race this interminable r and none of the others had been erased by time limitations. And America 3c,8.5 did not at the time seem to be struggling, though the wind was obviously dipping.

The on-board camera caught Koch yawning once and then twice. It was all looking to be so easy.

You got a clue that something was amiss on the horizon when on-board cameras caught Conner smiling. The man with such an eye for wind shifts obviously had an eye for realizing the wind was about to disappear altogether.

Still . . .

America 3 was close to that mark at least 15 minutes inside the time limit. It appeared impossible it would not get around. A more realistic concern was finishing the entire course--eight legs--in less than the 4-hour, 12-minute limit for that distance.

It appeared that A3 was maybe 50 to 75 yards away, though distances can be deceiving on the water. Suddenly, it was twisting dead in the water. Sails flapped. Sixteen sailors and millions of dollars in technology would not fill those sails and move that boat.

Melges tried tacking, but the current pushed the boat below the lay line to the buoy. And, no, the current was not going the right direction. America 3 couldn’t even get a free ride. The current negated what little wind it managed to capture in its sails. This marvelous yacht actually drifted backward at times.

It was so close. It was like a bad dream for Koch and his men. There was nothing they could do, except maybe put up a spinnaker and everybody exhale at once. That was as good a chance as they had.

When time expired, America 3 had not moved appreciably in 15 minutes. It was like trying to sail in wet cement.

Koch, chagrined, gritted his teeth.

Conner smiled.

No, nothing happened. For Koch, that was the problem. For Conner, that was the solution.