The odds are not good, but Lawrie Smith is holding out hope.

Sure, Rothmans can still win the Whitbread Round the World Race. Stranger things have happened in the Marquis de Sade of sailing.

For instance, Markku Wiikeri’s Martela O.F. capsized during the fourth leg when its keel fell off. The mast on Ludde Ingvall’s Union Bank of Finland inexplicably splintered like a toothpick during Leg 3. Whales poke holes in the hull of Alain Gabbay’s Charles Jourdan so regularly one has to wonder if they are taking target practice. Anything can — and — will happen.

“The wind could blow 50 knots and Peter Blake’s mast could fall straight overboard,” Smith said. “He could run aground five miles from the finish line. A big powerboat could run straight through them, if paid enough.”

Smith leaned back and laughed. It was only a joke. He is a yachtsman and a proper British gentleman and would not think of submarining Steinlager 2’s effort.

Besides, it probably wouldn’t help him. There is not one, but two New Zealand ketches ahead of his 80-foot tobacco-sponsored sloop.

“I have to accept it,” said Smith, 34, who will skipper a British entry in the America’s Cup challenger trials in 1992. “The ketches are going to beat us barring intervention from God.”

Unless something more than a wee bit spooky happens, Smith will be racing for third when the 22-yacht fleet heads back to Southampton, England, Saturday.

Blake’s Steinlager 2 has won all five previous legs and holds a 35-hour lead over Grant Dalton’s Fisher & Paykel. Merit, an 80-foot sloop skippered by 1985-86 Whitbread winner Pierre Fehlmann of Switzerland, is third, another 11 hours back and nearly nine hours ahead of fourth-place Rothmans.

“Our gameplan is to beat Merit,” Smith said. “If we beat Merit, I’ll feel we’ve done about as good as we can do.”

A witty man who has been called the “greatest sailing talent in England,” Smith had hoped the Whitbread wouldn’t be like this. But the twin-masted ketches have been so dominant, Smith feels like a hired gun who has been armed with insufficient ammunition.

“We’ve done OK, but it’s disappointing the ketches are so much quicker,” Smith said Monday over lunch. “I never thought the difference would be as great as it is.

“Apart from the first leg, Peter Blake hasn’t sailed that well. He has made mistakes, but the speed of his boat has allowed him to get out of them every time.”

Rothmans led by as much as 80 miles during the 5,475-mile fifth leg, only to have Steinlager 2 wear the sloop down for the umpteenth time. Rothmans ended up third for the third time.

Smith decided to accept a position as skipper of Rothmans’ late-to-develop, $12-million Whitbread project in 1988, when it became obvious the America’s Cup was going to be mired in judicial muck.

“The America’s Cup was all screwed up,” he said. “Nothing was happening there. So when Rothmans asked me to do the Whitbread, I said yes because I felt I needed to be doing something professionally in sailing.

“I will do another only if everything is put together like this. I will not do it if anything about the program is iffy. This is not an adventure for me, it’s a race.”

Smith began sailing dinghies on lakes and reservoirs at age 7. His climb has included championships in European dinghy and J-24 classes, 6-meter world championships, Fastnet Race and Admirals Cup.

Smith became an America’s Cup skipper in 1980 at age 24 when he was named to the position on Lionheart, for whom he was hired as navigator.

“They fired the skipper two days before the first race and gave me the job,” he said. “I had never even held a steering wheel in one of the boats. It was a badly financed project with awful sails run by an old guy whose last previous challenge was in 1964. None of our crewmen was paid, I steered with a tiller and our winches were pedal-operated. When our grinders sat down, all I could see were their heads. We did horribly.”

Smith failed to qualify for the 1984 Olympics and finished fourth in 1988 in the soling class.

His next stop will be the America’s Cup again, for a syndicate he says is still in its planning stages.

But it is Whitbread worries that are in the forefront of his mind. As remote as his chances are, he is still thinking in terms of a win.

“In 1983, when he was down 3-1, nobody would have bet Dennis Conner was going to win the America’s Cup,” Smith said. “Nobody would have put any money on him in Australia. With a few breaks, I could still win.”