Part two of our long awaited Innerview with the most famous and one of the most successful sailboat racers of all time, Dennis Conner. We pick up with discussion on the America's Cup. This Innerview is brought to you by loyal SA advertiser the Sailing Pro Shop.Enjoy!

SA:  What do you think of the current America's Cup mess?  Will it get back on track?

DC: Of course it will.  The reality is that at some point the legal part of the current competition will end.  It's certainly not the first time the AC has been adjudicated or fought in the court of public opinion.  Lord Dunraven accused the NYYC of cheating at the end of the 19th century - he left, quit and went home.  Alan Bond was accused of cheating in 1983 and never signed the consent agreement that said that he wasn't.  What happened in '88 was even closer to what we're seeing today, with a Deed of Gift match, a multi-year court battle, and acrimony across the board.

Arguing about the interpretation of the Deed of Gift has ALWAYS been part of the Cup – after all, these are rich, powerful, strong, egocentric people trying to win a competition.  It's no different from big business, and now it's gone back to its roots - two billionaires duking it out like Sir Thomas Lipton and Vanderbuilt – nothing new here, and sooner or later it will be over, and someone will go racing.

SA:  Any thoughts on who is right?

DC: Bertarelli just looks pretty desperate to me.  He's trying to control the whole event, he wants to tell everybody what kind of boats to race, and how they're going to race them.  He wants both sides of the deal. This is a big change from the way it was always done. The Challengers used to work together to beat the Defender.  Now he wants to be the Challenger and the Defender by sailing in both sets of trials.   It's no surprise that Oracle has a problem with the 33rd protocol, and this time Bertarelli wasn't even subtle – his “Challenger” holds their annual regatta in Optimists.  Optimists!

SA: You say 'this time' – what happened last time?

DC: Last time Ernesto wanted to race with the Challenger in some of the Acts so he knew the competition.  It was never like that – as I said, the Challenger's were like a coalition against the defender.  When I was defending the Cup, not one of the Challengers ever came near me!  They'd be shot!  Imagine if I got to take Freedom and go and race in the Louis Vuitton and use my 20th best sails to see how I stand while the Challengers didn't have a clue - that's what they're doing – that's what Bertarelli wants to do.  It's all about the money, now, and it used to be all about the competition.  For instance, no one ever would have dreamed of selling the event to the highest bidder like Alinghi did with Valencia.  When we won and it came to San Diego – think of how much we could have sold the event for.

SA: Sure, New York or San Francisco might have paid a fortune...

DC: Or Dubai in this modern era. If it was worth 600 million to the Spanish, imagine what it would be worth to someone with real money like Dubai.   So you're getting the idea – it's ALL about the money.  The sport is not part of it – the Cup is hardly a sport anymore.  Show me a real sport where the defending champion gets to control both sides of an event; who gets to race, what they race in, how much they can spend, what the rules are...come on!

SA:  Do you have any desire to get back into it?  Could you form another syndicate or take the wheel for another crack?

DC: No way!  As much as I'd like to, where am I going to come up with 100 million a year? We're in a worldwide recession, and raising that kind of money just isn't reality in the US – or the rest of the world, for that matter.

SA:  But with all these teams claiming they're ready to challenge Alinghi....

DC: Most of them are paper teams.  They don't have the wherewithal to mount a serious challenge.  The clubs are doing it for the fun of participating in what could end up being the America's Cup, and the people doing it, by and large, are doing it for a paycheck.  They don't need to show their budget to sign up for a challenge in Switzerland.  There are no entry fees.  Given the worldwide economy we're seeing, I have to wonder about their sources of funding.  Even during the last Cup, Bertarelli needed to partially fund TNZ just so that some decent competition would show up – and that was when the global economy was in great shape.

SA: Back to money for a second.  There's a perception that you were always able to raise money better than anyone else.  Has the search for sponsors been a big part of your America's Cup career? 

DC: It was the biggest part, other than the crew.  Without the money I couldn't have had a program.  Without the sponsors there was no team.  How does the best sailor in the world with the best crew win the America's Cup without a boat?

SA: He's not going to.  So did you like the sponsor hunt?  Were you good at it?

DC:  I was good at it - I was the only one that raised the money from corporate sponsors.  Everyone else had rich benefactors.

SA:  What made you so good at it?

DC:  For one thing, I had no other choice.  It was either raise the money or not go.  I had a reputation for giving value for the sponsors' investment - it wasn't just slapping the name on the sail.  I had to sell more product for my customer - whether it was watches or airline seats. For each sponsor,  I came up with an individual marketing plan that went a long way towards satisfying that need. 

SA:  Do you want to give some tips to young sailors looking for help on getting sponsors involved in their campaigns?

DC: The first bit of advice is this - out of a PR budget you might get something for putting a company's name on your sail or trailer - but the real money has to come not from PR but from the marketing budgets.  Companies work on these during the 3rd and early 4th quarter when the budgets are submitted for the next year.  If you're not included in that budget, there's no real money for you.  The second tip is that you have to have a plan that will really add bottom line to the company – whatever the product is that they're selling.  How, at the end of the day, is their investment in you going to return a profit?  Devise a marketing plan that will answer these questions and you're far along toward getting a deal.  You can't just go in with your hands out – you might get some go-away money from petty cash or a PR contingency budget, but not much.  They just don't have much to give, especially now.

SA: What's your favorite boat?

DC: It's the Star boat! The best sailors in the world raced Stars, they were the most technologically advanced, the best sailmakers and the most clever, talented boat builders and sailors were all in them.  If you wanted to see how you stacked up against the best in the world, you'd race a Star.

SA: What else?

DC: I will say that I enjoyed racing with Buddy Melges in the E-Scow a great deal.

SA: The E-Scow fleet has an invitational regatta every year for the best teams in the country – the Blue Chip.  You won the Blue Chip, right?

DC: I actually won in '77 as the Mystery Guest - a neat tradition in the E-fleet.  I found the E-boat to be challenging and rewarding, similar to a Star boat in many ways, though I could just never get comfortable sitting to leeward and heeling the boat downwind.  And I have to give all the credit in the world for those victories to Buddy Melges, who has always been one of my heroes, and one of the best sailors in history.   

SA: When was the Star Class the best?

DC:  In the fifties and sixties and seventies, all the best sailors in the world ALL had star boats.  In the seventies too, actually up until about 1980.

SA: Are they still one of the most competitive fleets in your opinion?

DC: Definitely.  Probably the best sailors still, but it's hard to say now because of the optimum weights in so many classes.  A 170 lb. guy can't compete in a Snipe or a 470, a 150 lb. guy can't compete in an Optimist with a 120 lb. guy, so who knows?

SA:  What was your least favorite boat?

DC:  The J/24 is my answer, and that goes to show how smart the Johnstone brothers are.   Bob Johnstone is one of the best marketing guys to ever live.  Certainly number one in sailing – by far.  Imagine, he takes a horrible racing boat and makes it the most successful one-design keelboat ever.  The guy's a genius.  

SA: You've had so much experience at every level of sailing - do you think there is a way to make it work on TV, or should we just stop trying to pretend it ever will?

DC: Other than the America's Cup, I don't think that sailing on TV will ever work.  I think we should put TV out of our minds and stop letting it run the sport like it does so many others.  It's changed what sailing is all about, even the America's Cup, which used to have a 4 ½  hour time limit, and reduced it to something that will fit in a two hour TV slot.  They changed Olympic sailing forever, instead of a true competition of the world's best sailors, now we have a trophy dash that can fit in a five minute TV show with a Gary Jobson voiceover.  People watching TV aren't paying the bills – it's not like they're paying to watch. 

SA:  Here's another good question from an Anarchist:  “I followed much of your career since the AC, and you've always done an outstanding job of selecting and racing PHRF killers.  It seems as thought you're not only a great sailor with a great time, but you're always ahead of the curve in selecting and optimizing.  Your latest purchase, Numbers, seems to be something of a disappointment so far – has it been?”

DC: Your reader is right - I did spend a lot of time in buying the right boat.  A big part of winning in PHRF is having a boat with a good rating. I had to buy a boat that had a number of boats already rated.  I had to buy a NY40 or Soverel 33, where there was a strong national or local rating so I couldn't be singled out by the committee for a ratings change when I won.

As far as Numbers goes, I bought the boat for another reason, not just to win.  In the twilight of my sailing, I really enjoy sailing with my friends.  This boat can have 15 or 20 people, doesn't matter which, and it doesn't change the performance of the boat, it doesn't matter.  Ten of our races are beer can races – the most fun and best attended race of the year, with a limit of 100 boats.  This boat lets me race without worrying if one or two too many show up. 

SA: Anything else sell you on the boat?

DC: A lot of my friends had already sailed on the boat – Tom Whidden, Drew Fredeis, Brad Butterworth.  The previous owner, Dan Meyers, made sure the boat was very well taken care of.  Having four new mainsails and enough racing sails for the rest of my life is great for me - I can't afford to spend $25,000 on a new mainsail for every regatta.

It's all about the rating anyway.  If I do well, they'll raise it a little higher, and if I don't they'll give me time.  It'll all catch up with itself, so I'm not too concerned that I can't win every regatta with it.  The important thing is that it's a sweet boat to sail, it has mast jacks, it has every control known to man, it's got a really sweet helm, the sails are beautiful – the finest North can make.  That's why I bought the boat, as opposed to in the old days, looking for a rule-beater.

SA:  Another from the peanut gallery:  “After you'd won the LV Cup with Stars and Stripes but before the AC started with Koukaburra, you sailed one day against Steak & Kidney.  Many Australians believe this was the fastest 12 Metre ever built and could have made a real race for the Cup had the Royal Perth not been so against an East Coast boat representing them.  Was S&K faster than S&S?”

DC:  It wasn't the fastest 12 ever built, but it was really good - certainly as good as the other Australian boats.  But they didn't have the money or proper backing in the program, and some of their sailors were not as good, but it was a very fine boat.  Very quick, quicker than anyone knows, except for your questioner there.  That's the most astute question of the bunch.  I'm surprised your guy would've know that – he must have been Australian.  The guy that wrote that was switched on – very good question.

SA: We do occasionally have smart folks on SA.  So what was the fastest 12 ever built?

DC: In light air, all around, as they originally came out, it would have been KZ-7 or KZ-3. In over 20 knots, unquestionably Stars and Stripes.

SA: Here's another good one:  How did guys like Ash Boun, Lowell North, Carl Eichenlaub, and any others provide specific mentoring to you when you were young?

DC: Without the good fortune of growing up in San Diego when I did I would have been a different guy with a different outcome in my life, and a different result on the race course.  Having those sailors as my mentors here was a tremendous advantage to me. 

I had a bit of common sense, and was good at copying other sailors' good ideas, and ferreting out the good ideas from the bad ones.  Carl Eichenlaub was a brilliant builder/sailor.  I'll give you an example – he and Lowell North came up with the idea of having a cedar-cored spruce mast on a Star boat to save weight aloft – no one else had that kind of thinking anywhere in the world.  Lowell North was perhaps the best sailor that ever lived – bar none.  He was a brilliant engineer who developed so much in sailing.  North was the one that came up with the idea of broad seams to put draft in the sails.  He refined the boom vang.  He figured out that moving jib leads in and out would make a big difference, and that taking weight out of the ends of the boats and off the tip weight of the mast was a huge breakthrough.  Malin Burnham also was part of this group.  He was an intuitive sailor, a natural sailor – he could win with sheer talent.  If he worked as hard as these others, he would've won everything.  What I learned from those great sailors was there are a lot of different ways to win:  Intelligence, natural ability, hard work, and a combination of all of them.  I feel very fortunate to have been part of this group. 

Because I couldn't afford my own boat at the time, I had to crew for these guys – which turned out to be a godsend!  The very first boat I got was a Star boat, and it took it to my first ever Star Worlds in 1970.  It was the oldest boat in the fleet.  Guess what happened?

SA: You won?

DC:  I won.  Lowell North came second.  I had two seconds and three fifths.  People started saying, “Who's Dennis?”  Then I won two Congressional Cups, and Turner asked me to come crew for him in the America's Cup trials in 1974.  But beating North, one of my true idols, and winning the Star Worlds – that was the turning point of my life.

SA:  And what do you think is more valuable for young (11-16 years old) sailors – to sail in Sabots and Optimists or to sail as part of a program on a bigger boat?

DC: For sure, kids should be in smaller one-design boats like Optimists, Lightnings, 420s, 29ers, Lasers, that sort of thing.  Certainly not sabots. 

SA: So what boats do you have now?

DC: I've got the Farr 60 Numbers, the beautiful 51' Sparkman & Stephens classic sloop Brushfire, four Etchells, two identical 53' Formula Ones berthed at North Cove in downtown Manhattan – we do sails for the public and corporate team-building events with those boats.  We have a similar program here in San Diego with the IACC boats Abracadabra and Stars & Stripes.  I also own a few power boats, but maybe my coolest boat is the 140' replica of the boat that started it all – the schooner yacht America.

SA:  And what do you do with her?

DC:  We take tourists out for sunset sails, weddings, whale watching trips, that kind of thing. She's really fast!

SA: Why haven't you been sailing in the Etchells lately?

DC: I have a blood clot in my leg that keeps me from hiking, which means no Etchells sailing for the time being.   I look forward to regaining my health to sail in the Etchells Worlds in San Diego in 2010. 

SA:  Well, we certainly hope that you get over your injury, and that we see you back in the Etchells fleet soon.  Sailing isn't the same without you. 

DC: Injury or not, I'm still sailing, and life is good.  As the son of a fisherman, I really appreciate everything I have and everything I've had the opportunity to do.  I've been Commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club, Yachtsman of the Year 7 times, I've won an Olympic Medal, Star Worlds twice [once with five bullets -ed], three Etchells World Championships, four America's Cups...I've been on the cover of Sports Illustrated with President Reagan, on the cover of Time Magazine – how can you beat that?  And after all of it, I can still see the house I grew up in from where I'm talking to you on the phone.  I really don't have much to complain about.

SA:  Well, Dennis, you've been great, and everyone here really appreciates your time, and especially your honesty.  Thanks for letting us do this.

DC: Thank you, too – for doing this interview, and for the great site.

Photo of Conner sailing his classic woody Cotton Blossom courtesy of Da-Woody.