Stars & Stripes 87 (US 55) was the 12 Meter challenge boat sailed by Dennis Conner in his bid to reclaim the America's Cup from the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia in 1987.
Most believed this would place a greater premium on design trends established in Australia II, a boat that could turn fast and accelerate out of a tack quickly.
Conner believed pure boat speed would be the most important factor for success in the heavy seas and strong winds expected at Gage Roads off Fremantle.
[4] John Marshall, Conner's mainsheet trimmer on board Liberty in the '83 campaign, was made design team coordinator.
[5] Dennis Conner sea trialed the boats against each other in the Pacific waters of Hawaii, taking advantage of the steady 18 to 25 knot trade winds off Waikiki (33 to 46 km/h, or 21 to 29 mph).
[9] Aided by between-round changes to the keel's winglets and the more consistent presence of the "Fremantle Doctor" in late summer, the third round saw her come to form, with significant improvement in her upwind performance.
Coming into the Louis Vuitton Cup finals she was the second highest point scorer, and was set on a collision course with longtime rival Tom Blackaller, and USA.
[15] Close competitor Tom Blackaller felt the boat had found a 2⁄10-knot (0.37 km/h; 0.23 mph) increase in Velocity made good when sailing to windward as she entered the third round robin.
[17] KZ 7 was the top qualifier of the round robins, followed in the points competition by Stars & Stripes 87, USA and French Kiss.
Tactician Tom Whidden offered the following on the team's progress: "The low point was when we lost those four races in November and we really didn't set our boat up very well for that.
She was clearly a fast boat in both light and heavy air, had beaten Stars & Stripes 87 twice, and had won an incredible thirty-seven of thirty-eight match races.
The third race started out much as the previous two, with both boats taking a long tack out to the left hand side of the course in what Dennis Conner termed a "speed test".
Now it was KZ 7 that experienced a number of uncommon structural failures, all of which snowballed by the actions of the skipper and crew, culminating in Kiwi Magic blowing her backstay in an abrupt gibe.
All hands went forward to clear the wreckage, and then bring to deck and hoist the Number 7 genoa, completing the task before Kiwi Magic could slip by.
The resulting loss in time ended all hope Kiwi Magic had of overtaking Stars & Stripes 87 in the final beat.
A late round keel modification had provided Kookaburra III with a clear edge in speed, allowing them to emerge triumphant from a very close and contentious defender series.
The Aussies gave a great effort, but they simply lacked the boat speed to stay with Stars & Stripes 87, which showed a consistent twenty second advantage on each beat to windward.
[23] Stars & Stripes 87 was not a light weather boat, nor was she as quick in stays as either Kiwi Magic or Kookaburra III, but in the heavier winds off Fremantle she could outpace any challenger in straight-line sailing to windward.
[14] Though both Kiwi Magic in the challenger finals and Kookaburra III in the America's Cup were sailed aggressively, the edge in boat speed held by Conner allowed him to overpower his competitors in a single tack drag race to the first windward mark.
The challenger finalists and cup defenders were unable to engage him in a tactical race, where the quicker Kiwis and Kookaburras held the advantage.
"[24] Conner believed his Stars & Stripes 87 held a 0.3-knot (0.56 km/h; 0.35 mph) increase in upwind speed over Liberty, the 12 Meter he had sailed in defense of the cup in 1983.
[24] This represented a remarkable increase in boat speed, and enabled Conner and his team aboard Stars & Stripes 87 to recapture the America's Cup Trophy.