Gilmour cleans up at Match Race Germany

by Shawn McNeill on 14 Jun 2004 Peter Gilmour and the Pizza-La Sailing Team gained a measure of revenge today with a thorough victory over Bertrand Pacé’s French crew in the final of Match Race Germany, the penultimate event on the Swedish Match Tour 2003-’04.

Gilmour and the Pizza-La crew, including Mike Mottl (AUS), Kazuhiko Sofuku (JPN), Yasuhiro Yaji (JPN) and local German sailor Carsten Kemmling, defeated Pacé and crewmembers Benoit Briand (FRA), Thierry Fouchier (FRA), Fabrice Levet (FRA) and German Claas de Jong, 3-2, to claim the ninth annual event sailed on Lake Constance in southern Germany.

After losing to Pacé in the Swedish Match Tour final at Croatia two weeks ago, Gilmour came to Germany with a vengeance, and left with a slew of accolades.

Gilmour clinched the Swedish Match Tour Championship for 2003-’04 with his second at Croatia, but this week he padded his lead even more.

He earned 25 points by finishing first and increased his total to 142 points. He leads second place by 72 points. His team’s victory was its third in seven events on the 2003-’04 Tour.

By becoming the first skipper to win 10 straight races at Match Race Germany, he won a Mercedes Benz SLK 200 roadster valued at Euro 40,000 (approximately $48,000). And the Pizza-La crew won Euro 4,800 (approximately $5,700) in prize money.

“We also have a bit of humility,” said Gilmour, 44, from Perth, Western Australia. “It was a fabulous week.”

Pacé was clearly disappointed about losing, but knew it’d be difficult to beat Gilmour a second consecutive time.

“I couldn’t get out of being the port-tack boat in the pre-start,” said Pacé, 42. “He kept pushing us into trouble. Peter and his crew were clearly the better team today.”

In the Petit Final, Gavin Brady’s BMW Oracle Racing crew (Dirk de Ridder, Sean Clarkson, Brad Webb, Andreas John) defeated Jes Gram-Hansen’s Team Denmark (Rasmus Kostner, Christian Kamp, Michael Arnhild, Henning Sohm) 3-1 to capture third, and place Team Denmark fourth.

“We won three starts and he won one, and that was the difference,” said Brady, 30, the helmsman for America’s Cup challenger BMW Oracle Racing.

“Once we got up 2-0, we were able to change our strategy a bit and put more pressure on (Gram-Hansen) to sail a perfect race. We wanted to make it hard for him to execute,” said Brady.

Gram-Hansen expressed more disappointment today than yesterday, when he lost the one race showdown with Gilmour for the Mercedes Benz.

“Gilmour should’ve won that race, we never expected to,” said Gram-Hansen, 32. “I made some slight errors in timing. They were about 2 or 3 seconds, but it’s the difference between good and very good.”

Gilmour proved his immense talent at Match Race Germany. Two weeks ago at the Swedish Match Tour final in Croatia, Pacé got the measure of Gilmour in a 3-0 victory sailed in mostly light air.

That loss upset Gilmour more than any other. He prides himself on being able to convert victories once in the final of a match-race regatta, but had a phobia about sailing in light winds.

In the week in between events, Gilmour worked on changing his mindset to overcome that fear.

Mission accomplished. In the light and drifting conditions of the first two days at Match Race Germany, Gilmour streaked to five straight wins. Then, when the wind built, he won seven more.

He didn’t lose his first race of the regatta until the second flight of the final against Pacé, in winds that were around 12 knots. Gilmour shook off the loss and won the next two for a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven (first to 4 points) final series.

A two-hour delay ensued while the wind shifted more the 200 degrees and came and went as rainsqualls passed over the lake bordering Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

When Flight 5 was held, the breeze was blowing 16 to 20 knots from the east/southeast, the most breeze of the week. Pacé won the flight to get to 3-2, but then the 4:00 p.m. time limit expired and Gilmour claimed his first Match Race Germany title.

“Ironically, Bertrand won the heavy air races and we won the light-to-medium ones,” Gilmour said. “But really it came down to the starts. The ones he won he got us in the pre-start and the same for us.”

For Brady, it was his fourth third-place finish in five events on the 2003-’04 Tour. He also placed third at Japan, Long Beach and Elba. Although frustrated that he couldn’t win overall, Brady did move up to second overall in the Tour standings with one event to go.

“I’ve had a different crew at every event,” Brady said. “I don’t think any other America’s Cup team can put a different team in every regatta and consistently make the semi-finals like we have. We’re just missing the fine details.”

For Gram-Hansen, it was his second consecutive fourth, but it helped him move up the Tour standings. He’s now placed sixth with 38 points, and well within striking distance of the top five.

“We always want to win, but maybe we didn’t sail as well as we could have,” said the skipper from Aarhaus, Denmark. “On the other hand, we’re satisfied to get the invites and put out a strong performance. It shows an amateur team can compete with the America’s Cup teams.”

The Swedish Match Cup is the final event on the 2003-'04 Tour. Held in Marstrand, Sweden, it is scheduled July 5-11.