COLD MAN AND THE SEA

By Margot Hornblower/Los Angeles

Dennis Conner, the consummate yachtsman if not the consummate gentleman, is even more of a celebrity in New Zealand than in the U.S. Way Down Under, where sailing is a serious sport, the San Diego skipper is known not only as Mr. America's Cup, though, but also as Dirty Dennis. The moniker stems from his having publicly accused the Kiwis of cheating in 1987, when they were on the verge of winning the Cup's Challenger series. The charge was officially discounted, but the flustered New Zealanders, despite a 37-1 record in the trials, came unglued. Conner went on to thrash them and ultimately win the Cup, yacht racing's Holy Grail, back from Australia. The Aussies, perhaps, had the best take on their rival. dennis, we love you, you bastard read one dockside banner. But the Kiwis smoldered.

Eight years later, the little island country-with a population smaller than that of Los Angeles-has mounted an almost $20 million challenge, complete with the requisite space-age, computer-loaded sloop, to wrest the 144-year-old silver ewer from its U.S. berth. The grudge match between Team New Zealand and Team Dennis Conner began last Saturday in the first race of a best-of-nine series, with a resounding victory by the Kiwis aboard Black Magic I. With a possible two more weeks of sailing in the famously fickle breezes off San Diego, the final outcome is still a long way off. "Everyone thinks that the Kiwis are going to stomp us," said Bill Trenkle, Conner's operations manager. "But it could be really close."

Conner is the defender thanks as much to his off-water politicking as to his seamanship. His clout with yacht-club cronies led to a new interpretation of the rules, allowing him to replace a broken keel with a better model. Hours before the last semifinals race, in which he would have been eliminated in a 5-min. rout by the mostly women's team aboard Mighty Mary, Conner negotiated a deal to turn the two-boat finals into a three-boat series. In his last finals race, Conner must have cut a deal with an even higher authority: his Stars & Stripes found a mysterious breeze that allowed it to make up a seemingly insurmountable 4-min., 42-boat-length lead on the final leg to overtake Mighty Mary. No wonder that each morning, as Conner's boat leaves the dock, loudspeakers blast the team's anthem: the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive.

It is no accident that Conner, now 52, has survived six America's Cups in two decades, spurred the transformation of the event into a high-tech-and highly commercialized-business, and dominated his sport as much as any athlete in history. "Dennis is totally focused on winning," says John Marshall, who was once the head of Conner's design team but is now the chief of a rival syndicate. "If people are in the way, he'll walk over them or kick them out of the way. The humane side is not there, but he's a good leader and an extremely creative marketer."

Conner also posseses a knack for compromise. When he was losing in the semifinals, he offered to merge his team with the women's team, taking their faster boat and half their crew, according to Vincent Moeyersoms, Mighty Mary's manager. The courtship was spurned. But when Conner finally won the defender's title, he wasted no time in dumping Stars & Stripes and making a deal to sail Marshall's Young America-the first time a finalist has switched boats before the last series. Conner might have coveted Mighty Mary, but the women weren't about to let him have their boat, not after Conner's crew shouted vulgar insults and made obscene gestures at them during start maneuvers in the semifinals. Said Bill Koch, who funded Mighty Mary's attempt: "If we gave him our boat, some of the women told me they'd knock holes in it first."

The switch to Young America gave Conner's team less than a week to learn to sail the new boat, but that was less risky than sailing the sluggish Stars & Stripes against the swift Black Magic I. "Young America's deck layout is different, but we're getting used to it," said Trenkle. "It's like getting a new car and the knobs are not where you think they are."

The sudden switch prompted outrage in New Zealand, of course. "Dennis is doing what he's always doing," Prime Minister Jim Bolger told reporters. "He's bending the rules a little. I mean, it wouldn't be a final race if he didn't do that." Trenkle shrugged off the complaints and said, "With all the bad things written about Dennis over the years, this just rolls off his back."

Because of the demands of design, organization and marketing, Conner leaves most of the steering of his boat these days to equally aggressive helmsman Paul Cayard. But Conner retains the title of skipper, and indeed, his strategic genius and Houdini-like survival skills are integral to the team's success. As his opponents can attest, he will do anything to prevent a recurrence of his worst nightmare: losing the Cup to Australia in 1983, which was the first time the Auld Mug had ever passed out of American hands. Should that happen this time, few doubt that Dirty Dennis will be sailing-and roiling-the waters off Auckland, New Zealand, in 1999.