Team Dennis Conner will race the refloated USA-77 against the British

by Keith Taylor on 11 Nov 2002 Team Dennis Conner will race its newest boat Stars & Stripes USA-77 in its Louis Vuitton Cup Quarter
Final match against Britain’s GBR Challenge.

'Team Dennis Conner will be sailing back-from-the-depths USA-77,'
Read told a packed press conference at the Louis Vuitton Media
Centre this morning. He was referring to the day in late July that
the team’s newest boat sank off the port of Long Beach after the
rudder broke off, tearing a hole in the bottom of the boat.

The first race of the best-of-seven series is scheduled to start
tomorrow Tuesday, November 12, at 1:00 pm local time but heavy
winds forecast for the next 24 hours may force a delay until
Wednesday. Team Dennis Conner is racing under the colors of the New
York Yacht Club, one of eight challengers for the America’s Cup.

“We’re very much looking forward to racing with USA-77,” Read said.
“This is what we have always considered to be our race boat. Our
mishap in California set our program back a bit but we’ve worked
really hard to capitalize on the situation.

“Our boat builders and shore crew have done a great job. We’re very
comfortable with it now, and comfortable that it does have a
performance edge over USA-66; therefore it became an easy
decision.”

Asked how if he had any nagging doubts about being the first
skipper to sail an America’s Cup boat that had gone to the bottom,
Read said that a new bow had been grafted onto USA-77 starting at a
point just ahead of the mast.

“The boat builders have done a spectacular job,” Read said. “You
take the engineering data and you take the information the
boatbuilders present to you. They say it’s fine but then you have
to go out and sail the boat and prove it to yourself. We really
wanted to use USA-77 in the Second Round Robin but we hadn’t quite
proved to ourselves that the boat was as solid as we needed it to
be, in order to push it as hard as possible.

“Since then we’ve done some more testing and it has been blowing
plenty hard for testing. We’ve had it out in some good breezes with
no creaks or groans. In fact it’s a quieter boat at this point than
USA-66 so we have no worries from a strength standpoint.”

Read’s counterpart, British skipper Ian Walker announced his team
will sail Wight Lightning GBR-70, the same boat it used in its two
Round Robin races against the New York team. Walker said his team
had made improvements to the boat and they were more comfortable
with it than their radical new boat Wight Magic GBR-78, which is
rumored to have a twin rudder configuration.
Sailing Stars & Stripes USA-66, Team Dennis Conner defeated the
British in their first meeting in the Louis Vuitton preliminaries
and lost to them in the second, leaving the score between the pair
at 1-1. The teams are ranked sixth and seventh respectively after
the Round Robin competition. The winner of their match will go
forward to the best-of-seven Quarter Finals Repechage while the
loser will be eliminated.

Team Dennis Conner and the New York Yacht Club have partnered to
put forth the finest team of American designers, sailors, boat
builders and shore side support to win America’s Cup XXXI and
return the America’s Cup to the United States. The America’s Cup
season began on October 1, 2002 with a four-month challenger
elimination series known as the Louis Vuitton Cup. The winner of
the Louis Vuitton Cup will challenge Team New Zealand for the right
to defend the America’s Cup in a best of nine series starting on
February 15, 2003.

Team Dennis Conner's platinum sponsor, Computer Associates
International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) delivers the software that manages
eBusiness. As the world’s third largest enterprise software
company, CA provides industry-leading integrated solutions through
strategic partnerships and powerful brands such as Unicenter®,
BrightStor™, eTrust™, CleverPath™, Advantage™, Jasmine® and
AllFusion™. With mission-critical software in security and
storage, CA provides reliable, quality technology. For more
information, visit www.ca.com.

Gold sponsors of the Team Dennis Conner America's Cup challenge
include Citizen Watch Company (www.citizenwatch.com), proud maker
of the new Eco-Drive Sailhawk, the official Stars & Stripes team
watch, the ACE Group of Companies (www.acelimited.com), a premier
global insurance and reinsurance organization and Airgas, Inc.
(www.airgas.com), the largest U.S. distributor of industrial,
medical and specialty gases, welding, safety and related products.
With an integrated network of nearly 800 locations
nationwide--including branches, retail stores, gas fill plants,
specialty gas labs, production facilities and distribution
centers--Airgas' national scale and strong local presence offer
customers a competitive advantage

Team Dennis Conner’s Silver sponsors are Nautica (www.nautica.com),
the team’s official apparel sponsor and a leading global fashion
and lifestyle company with products ranging from men's, women's and
children's sportswear, denim and accessories to a complete home
collection, Manugistics (www.manugistics.com), a leading software
company that provides comprehensive solutions which enable
companies to share inventory, pricing and planning information with
customers and suppliers over the Internet and Viagra
(www.viagra.com). Discovered and developed by Pfizer, Viagra is the
breakthrough oral treatment for erectile dysfunction that has been
found to be effective and well tolerated in over 100 completed and
ongoing clinical studies. Viagra has been approved by regulatory
authorities in 119 countries around the world and is among the most
widely prescribed medications, with over 120 million prescriptions
written for more than 20 million men.

Team Dennis Conner’s Suppliers are 3M, Air New Zealand, Airgas,
Airtech, APL Limited, Arc Second, Bathysphere Digital Media
Services, Columbus Line, Digi International, Dupont, Earth Tech,
Itronix, Lewmar Marine, McLube, Media Bin, Munters, Nautica
Eyewear, New England Ropes, Newport Adhesives & Composites,
Omnisonics Medical, Pacer Technologies, Parker, Plastimo,
Protector, Remy Amerique, Saucony, WiTango and Xygent.