British outsail French Kiss

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 8

British outsail French Kiss

NZPA-Reuter Fremantle Britain’s White Crusader did not let a dispute over its name affect performance yesterday when the yacht easily outsailed French Kiss on the sixth day of racing in the America’s Cup challenge series. White Crusader’s Irish-born skipper Harold Cudmore made it four wins out of six and a third equal place in the standings for the Royal Thames Yacht Club boat. The British, who beat the French by one minute 28 seconds, are awaiting a ruling on whether the boat’s name linked to its sponsorship by a whisky maker infringes the strict rules governing advertising. The French skipper, Marc Pajot, who started his cup campaign with a hat-trick of victories, has now lost three consecutive challenge races. Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes made it six wins in a row to stay top of the 13yacht standings with an expected easy victory over Challenge France, which has yet to win a race. America 11, defeated for the first time on Thursday, stormed back to beat theveteran fellow American yacht Courageous IV by more

.than 11 minutes, the biggest margin so far in the series. Dennis Conner’s Sail ‘America syndicate does not believe the Lloyd’s,measurer was able to ensure that the hull of New Zealand’s glass fibre America’s Cup challenger was built uniformly. The challenge president, Malin Burnham, a heavyweight in the Conner camp, said last evening that the integrity of the surveyor, or Lloyd’s itself, was not in question. “But in the construction of fibreglass hulls it is almost impossible to get a uniformity of thickness and strength,” he said. “It is impossible, when laying strips of resin in the hull construction, to ensure the thickness is uniform. What we are asking for is a simple check. “What we are saying is that when more sophisticated techniques are used for constructing yachts, more scientific methods of measuring them should be employed.” Burnham said the syndicate would be happy with the answer of the measurer without seeing the samples, and accepted that holes need not necessarily be drilled in the hull of KZ7 to get the answer. Further report, back page