Holmberg goes swimming

Classic clash of the Alinghi skippers at the Swedish Match Cup

On a day when Russell Coutts couldn’t keep from plowing into Peter Holmberg, American Ed Baird rolled to a 6-0 record to ensure himself a spot in Saturday’s quarterfinals of the Swedish Match Cup.

With racing in Group B suspended late this afternoon due to lack of wind, Baird, the reigning ISAF Match Racing World Champion, rolled to a 6-0 record against tough competition looking completely at ease in the light winds.

“There are some days where everything goes your way,” said Baird, who earlier this year won the Swedish Match Tour's Congressional. “Today, all the little things fell in our lap.”

Despite having one more flight to sail before Group B completes its initial round robin, Baird can’t be beaten. Below him the standings are a jumbled mess as the competitors fought each other and light winds.

Russell Coutts (NZL) currently lies second with 3.5 points on a 4-1 record and Björn Hansen (SWE) is third at 3-2. Three skippers are tied at 2-3, including Peter Gilmour (AUS), Holmberg (USVI) and Luc Pillot (FRA). Lars Nordbjerg (DEN) is seventh at 1-4, while Staffan Lindberg (FIN) is eighth at 1-5.

The most extraordinary match saw Russell Coutts against Peter Holmberg, the outgoing Alinghi helm versus the incoming, a race that at one point saw the Virgin Island skipper in the water swimming and Coutts come back from two penalties down.

With the wind blowing around 7 knots, Holmberg led Coutts to the windward mark. Both were on port tack and Coutts was slightly overlapped on Holmberg’s windward quarter. Holmberg luffed, trying to stall Coutts.

“The standard move is to luff head-to-wind to slow the other guy before you bear off and accelerate away,” said Holmberg. “I guess he got anxious. He tried bearing away to go below us and misjudged the distance. He came in with serious force, hit us in the port transom and spun me over the side.”

“We hit him pretty hard,” recounted Coutts’ crewmember Jes Gram-Hansen. “I’d give Peter a 9 for that nosedive in the drink.”

As he fell in the water Holmberg grabbed the spinnaker sheet so he didn’t get separated from the boat. He was in the water for only a few seconds and climbed back aboard with the help of the on board observer. ( See page two for the full photo sequence).

Coutts, whose crew at the Swedish Match Cup is Gram-Hansen’s Danish match-race team rather his usual veteran line-up such as Warwick Fleury, Simon Daubney and Murray Jones, was penalised twice by the on-water umpires. He had to perform one of the turns immediately, which allowed Holmberg to regain the lead on the three-lap course.

Holmberg held a big lead on the second beat, but the race was far from over in the shifty and puffy light winds. Up the third beat, Holmberg said that Coutts did a better job picking the puffs. With better speed Coutts got the inside at the second weather mark and rounded in front. With the final run still to go he was leading but still had a penalty turn to perform.

Coutts sailed a hot angle to the left corner of the run, then gybed to starboard towards the finish line. Holmberg was close and the 1,000 spectators lining Marstrand harbour watched intently to see if there was enough distance between the two for Coutts to perform his final 360 and win.

“We talked about it on the run,” Gram-Hansen said. “We thought we were close enough to having the distance needed for the turn.”

Remarkably they had. The genoa went up, the chute came down and Coutts carved a smooth turn around the pin end. His bow crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of Holmberg’s to claim the win. “I didn’t think he had enough distance,” said Holmberg. “I thought he’d slow up on the run and try to offset the penalty.”

Despite coming back from being two penalties down, Coutts received an addition 0.5 point penalty after the race for the damage he had incurred.

Baird made it through the day without any penalties, and with little trouble. He did well in the pre-starts, and won against some of the best skippers in the business: Gilmour, Holmberg and Coutts, whom he beat after trailing around the first lap.

“When we needed a shift we got a shift, when we needed a puff we got a puff,” said main trimmer and tactician Andy Horton. “It’s easy when it goes your way.”

This evening the race committee was sorting out how to complete the seven remaining matches in Group B. They must be completed before Stage 2 can be conducted.

Stage 2 sees the second to seventh place finishers in Groups A and B line up against each other in a knockout series, with the first to 3 points winning.


Open regatta standings

Group B
1. Ed Baird/USA, SKF Racing 6-0
Crew: Andy Horton, Pete van Nieuwenhyzen, Peter Poulsen, Jon Ziskind
2. Russell Coutts/NZL 4-1, 3.5 points*
Crew: Michael Arnhild, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner
(* A .5-point penalty was assessed against Coutts for hitting Peter Holmberg)
3. Bjorn Hansen/SWE 3-2
Crew: Mattias Bredin, Fredrik Ekman, Gustav Kampolm, Anders Jönsson
4. Peter Gilmour/AUS, Pizza-La Sailing Team 2-3
Crew: Rod Dawson, Mike Mottl, Kazuhiko Sofuku, Yasuhiro Yaji
= Peter Holmberg/USVI, Team Alinghi 2-3
Crew: Richard Bouzaid, Lorenzo Mazza, Will McCarthy, Dean Phipps
= Luc Pillot/FRA 2-3
Crew: Gilles Andre, Fabrice Blondel, Erik Ferran, Frédéric Guilmin
7. Lars Nordbjerg/DEN 1-4
Crew: Jeppe Blak, Niels Gramkov, Thomas Hartvig, Henning Lambertsen
8. Staffan Lindberg/FIN 1-5
Crew: Johan Karlsson, Daniel Mattsson, Johan Mossberg, Daniel Wallberg