Team Dennis Conner's vaunted two-boat testing program for America's Cup 31 is a sham, but a necessary deceit for him to pull-off if he wants to "go to the dance", collect a check and be famous in public for a few months. TDC's spin is that they have been conducting an effective two boat testing program (ala his lead-up to a successful challenge in Freemantle in 1987) which will maximize the potential of the John Reichel penned shapes. Only trouble is they only have one new IACC yacht and the barge they have attempted to trial against is an America's Cup yacht in name only. Second problem is that their second new boat, US-77, wasn't finished and won't be delivered with sufficient time to allow a bonafide testing program to be undertaken.

One of the Aloha Racing built pigs, US-54, was first acquired by Oracle from a bankruptcy court trustee's sale in Texas for leverage in Ellison's negotiations to acquire the assets of AmericaOne (but none of the personnel most of whom were judged to be liabilities the Ellison group wanted no part of). After Oracle bludgeoned A-One into submission at the bargaining table, the Aloha assets became redundant and were peddled about town with little interest save that of the bottom-feeder from Point Loma. DC's handler, Bill Trenkle, got US-54 for virtually nothing, a price so low that when OneWorld offered the improved US-55 at a bargain basement price, the offer was rejected. To make up for her inherently poor design and slowness, US-54's boom was lengthened but US-66's natural speed leaves the Aloha hermaphrodite in the dust notwithstanding the changes that would disqualify her from measurement under the 24 metre rule (i.e. the IACC Rule).

While DC's second boat, US-77, will be a veritable clone of US-66 (same design plans, same tooling: less cost) purportedly to allow New Zealand-style two evolutionary design testing, it won't actually be used for that purpose and she wasn't built for that reason, the Team's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. In REAL two boat design testing, modifications are made to only one boat and if she proves faster in the target conditions against her stablemate, the same modifications are also made to the second boat. Computer modelling has reduced the attraction of this type of design testing program because while effective and reliable, it also consumes lots of time if effectively performed which makes it exceedingly expensive bearing in mind that two identically outfitted and manned yachts are required.

Given the fact that two perfectly identical yachts are required for proper 2 boat design testing, one wonders how much DC can actually accomplish hereafter since it is evident that nothing of benefit could be learned by pacing between US-54 and US-66. With just over 4 months remaining before the first AC Challenger Selection Series' gun, and US-77 still in Rhode Island for NYYC/sponsor "Dog and Pony" shows, Dennis doesn't seem to be taking his claimed two boat testing program too seriously. It will take several weeks for US-77 to reach California and upon arrival she will need rigging and other outfitting before she can be splashed and sailed. By the time they get the new boat sorted out it will be at least mid-June before she ins in the water and can begin anything akin to the testing program the team claims they have in store.

It takes between 2-3 weeks to transport the yachts to New Zealand and since the shipping will be gratis don't expect Trenkle to be on the phone to the shipping company demanding special treatment or that the ship "add some turns" in order to accelerate delivery. Once the boats reach New Zealand (probably at one of those discount shipping ports north of Auckland that add additional delay to arrival at their team base) they will have to re-rig both yachts and sort out the problems that invariably arise before they can go sailing. If the team plans to have a minimum of 6 weeks local New Zealand sailing before the first race October 1st, they will need to be packed and aboard ship by Mid-July at the latest. Given these unavoidable time parameters,Team Dennis Conner would have between 3 and 5 weeks to perform 2 boat testing in Long Beach assuming that was ever the plan.

When compared to the years devoted to two boat testing by Team New Zealand before their 1995 and 2000 AC victories, it suddenly becomes clear that US-77, the second Stars & Stripes, was built to create the illusion of a credible challenge and bonafide two boat testing was never intended. But why the continuing deceit? Wasn't the multiple trips to the AC-30 rules woodshed sufficient to eliminate the cultural dishonesty that previously permeated the team's public announcements? It appears the sad answer is "no" and, again, money is the root of the evil that has sunk its teeth into Team Dennis Conner's neck. Here's a bit of the relevant economics:

In AC fund-raising it is an absolute must that the potential sponsor be made to believe that your team is likely to go all the way. Why? Because sponsorship is simply another medium for advertising of a product/service with "delivered viewership" being the standard for comparing the AC advertising apples with television/print/radio oranges. Since in the AC "there is no second place" the sponsors of eight challengers will not get the viewership that was pitched, with even worse fulfilment performance for those eliminated earlier. To deal with this inherent dilemma, syndicates such as TDC do their utmost to convince sponsors that they are a viable challenge that will go the distance (or at least a goodly portion of it) and in order to sustain that claim you need two new boats because every potential sponsor will be aware that a one boat campaign won't prevail.

But what do you do when your sponsors are expecting a two boat campaign but your budget doesn't allow for construction, outfitting, manning and management for more than a one boat effort? This was the problem AmericaOne confronted in 1998-99 when their funding was so dismal that crew were asked to work part time jobs, and they received less than the pay of an illegal Chinese kitchen worker in Chinatown. Unfortunately they had pitched Ford for funding emphasizing that funds sufficient to construct two boats was essential to success because no modern syndicate had ever won the America's Cup with a one boat campaign. The problem was that although Ford agreed to sponsorship, they didn't come through with as much moola as A-One expected (something about "in-kind" sponsorship comes to mind). Nonetheless, Ford still expected a two boat campaign. When the A-One cronies tried to weasel out of their commitment to build two boats, Ford responded by giving them another $1.5M which might have seemed like a lot of money but until you add up the costs of expanding from an one to a two boat effort with the attendant doubling of almost every budget line item from sails to toilet paper.

Back to DC and here's my read: he must build a second boat because that's what he promised to the New Yorkers and his other sponsors and he wouldn't have been taken seriously or considered a credible challenger worthy of financial backing if his pitch was instead a one-boat campaign. He needed to show the folks that this time he wasn't in the Cup just to "show up at the dance". However the logistics are incontrovertible a killer and convincingly demonstrate that TDC has neither the time, or financial resources (or competent "mushroom" crew) to do a two boat testing program. Those guys who swarmed around DC and who would crew on his trial horse for a pittance are now with other teams pulling down the decent wages he refuses to pay or they are just too damn old to be of value in a gruelling testing program. I simply cannot, in my wildest imagination, envision Dennis and Billy are standing on the tarmac at LAX watching the Stars & Stripes yachts being loaded aboard an AN-124 or 747!

Unlike Prada, whose designers will continue to devote their full time efforts to AC design improvement and testing thoughout the entire Cup campaign (when they aren't searching for classic yacht fittings on eBay), TDC's designer John Reichel will have little if any further involvement -- he has delivered his lines, completed his commitment and is now busy with new projects for generous clients. It seems rather doubtful that design coordinator Jim Pugh, even as kind and considerate as he is, will see his way to pulling staff off the money-making Kahn and Disney projects in order to work on Stars & Stripes, especially when he recalls the token design fee paid.

All of this convinces me of one thing: Dennis is at it again. He's pretending to be a real contender with all this talk about identical two boat testing, but in reality he just wants an excuse to show-up "at the dance" again, collect his check and spend a few months being famous. However, now that I think about it that way it sounds like really great work . . . if you can get it!