Gilmour leads four to semis in Germany

by Sean McNeill on 16 May 2005 The first and third-placed skippers on the Swedish Match Tour leaderboard are among the four semi-finalists at Match Race Germany, Stage 6 of the 2004-’05 Swedish Match Tour.

Third-placed Peter Gilmour (AUS), of Pizza-La Sailing Team, won the Quarter-final Round with a 6-1 record and will meet Bertrand Pacé (FRA), of BMW Oracle Racing, in one semifinal match. It is a rematch of last year’s Match Race Germany championship, which Gilmour won 3-2.

Tour leader Ed Baird (USA), of Team Alinghi, will square off against Jesper Bank (DEN), of United Internet Team Germany, in the other semifinal match. Bank and Baird each finished the quarterfinals with a 5-2 record, but Bank defeated Baird in Flight 9 to win the tiebreaker.

Pacé just barely advanced to the semis. He finished the quarterfinals in a three-way tie that had more permutations than the weather on Lake Constance.

Pacé tied with Ben Ainslie (GBR), of Emirates Team New Zealand, and Sten Mohr (DEN), each at 3-4. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition, but that didn’t resolve it because they beat each other at least once.

The next tiebreaker pits each skipper against the winner of the round. Gilmour beat all three, so that didn’t solve it. The next tiebreaker pits each skipper against the runner-up of the round. Bank beat all three, so that didn’t solve it.

In the end, it was Pacé’s victory over Baird in today’s Flight 7 that put him in the semifinals.

‘When I docked at the end of the day I thought I’d change my plane ticket to leave tomorrow morning,’ the Frenchman said.

Skippers eliminated from advancing include Ainslie, Mohr, Ian Williams (GBR) and Staffan Lindberg (FIN). Ainslie won the head-to-head tiebreaker with Mohr for fifth and sixth. Williams placed seventh with a 2-5 record, while Lindberg finished eighth with a 1-6 mark.

Today’s racing again was beset by fluky winds. Racing was interspersed with several long postponements as the wind came and went. When it blew, it was mostly from the northwest, and the strength ranged from 0 to 10 knots.

Gilmour’s in the enviable position of being atop the leaderboard. If the regatta has to be decided on a countback due to problems completing the next two rounds he can win his second straight Match Race Germany.

‘That was in the back of our mind,’ Gilmour said. ‘We tried hard to win the round robin. We just want to keep improving our sailing.’

For flight-by-flight results from Match Race Germany, information on the Swedish Match Tour, and a link to the Tour’s broadband TV channel, please visit the official Tour Web site, www.SwedishMatchTour.com.