Rudder Search Continues as Team DC Breaks Camp

By Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.com

Stars & Stripes USA-66 is the last significant presence at Team Dennis Conner's training base on Terminal Island, Calif. as it waits to be loaded onto the container ship Direct Falcon for shipment Wednesday to Auckland, where the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials for the America's Cup start Oct. 1. Its sister ship, USA-77, was shipped out a week earlier on the Vladivostok after being recovered from a July 23 sinking off Long Beach and was due to arrive next Tuesday.

TERMINAL ISLAND, Calif.---Team Dennis Conner has packed its gear, folded its tent that served as a sail loft, loaded the boats onto container ships and set off for Auckland, N.Z. and the America's Cup. The humble training base amid the giant cranes of the APL container terminal is officially closed.

Only one thing was left behind: the rudder that still lies about two miles off Seal Beach about 10 miles away.

"We haven't recovered it yet," operations manager Mick Harvey said Wednesday as the Direct Falcon sailed away with Stars & Stripes USA-66 buried among the containers. "We're still looking for it."

That was the only part of USA-77 that wasn't recovered the day the newer of the racing machines went down in about four minutes when the rudder housing failed.

The boat, christened less than two months earlier, was sailing inshore to pick up Conner and some sponsors behind the Long Beach breakwater when it sank in only 55 feet of water. The rudder fell off somewhere in its wake---perhaps deeper, perhaps buried in mud.

"It's probably a couple of tenths of a mile [from where the boat sank]," Harvey said.

The team has hired a company to look for it using side scan sonar.

"It's worth a lot of money to us, and it's a replacement part, too," Harvey said.

Team general manager Bill Trenkle said earlier that they knew---but couldn't reveal---exactly what went wrong, but if the rudder is found "it will complete that part of the puzzle," Harvey said.

Meanwhile, USA-77 was en route to New Zealand on another ship---its second trip "down under," the standing joke says---and is due to arrive next Tuesday. USA-66 was loaded Tuesday and departed Wednesday for the two-week journey. Both boats will go directly into the working shed in the TDC compound at the head of the Viaduct Basin.

"We've got some maintenance to do on both boats so we can have them ready as soon as possible," Harvey said. "We'll have one boat sailing right away with the other one a couple of weeks away."

It's just spring in Auckland.

"We feel that the timing is really good," Harvey said. "The weather is starting to improve."

The Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials start Oct. 1.