Baird and Gilmour to square-off for the money

by Sean McNeill on 9 Jul 2005 Ed Baird (USA) and Peter Gilmour (AUS) are slated to meet each other tomorrow in the quarter-final round of the Open Regatta at the Swedish Match Cup, but it’s no ordinary quarter-final match.

Baird and Gilmour are the two remaining contenders for the Swedish Match Tour championship. They’re tied with 102 points. Whoever wins tomorrow’s match wins the Tour championship, regardless of how they finish overall.

At stake is a $60,000 bonus from the Tour and a BMW 545i Touring, valued at $85,000, from Tour partner BMW. Adding pressure the situation is that it is a best-of-three format. The first to win two points wins everything.

‘It’s a fantastic outcome for the Tour to have the two finalists fight it out like this,’ said Gilmour, the reigning Tour champion. ‘I’m sure Ed would like to have a crack at us and we’d like to have a crack at Ed. It’s going to be a gangbuster race.’

‘We’re just happy to be sailing tomorrow,’ said Baird. ‘It’s Peter’s event to lose. He’s beaten us in every event this year and he’s always strong here in Marstrand.’

While Gilmour advanced to the quarter-finals with a 2-0 victory over Johnie Berntsson (SWE), Baird barely survived his match against Lars Nordbjerg (DEN). With the wind blowing from the north-west around 12 knots, the skippers split the first two races to set up a sudden death showdown in Flight 3.

Nordbjerg won the start and led for the first lap. A quarter of the way up the second beat Baird was penalised for luffing with out rights, and it appeared at that point that he was going to be eliminated from the regatta. That would’ve handed the Tour championship to Gilmour.

Nordbjerg handed the race to Baird at the top of the beat. With both crews on port and Nordbjerg the windward boat, the Dane sailed down on top of Baird to negate the American’s penalty.

Nordbjerg was rattled by the penalty. He turned around to argue with the umpires (as Baird was, too) and wound up sailing down on top of Baird again and hit him. Members of Baird’s crew said that if Nordbjerg had sheeted on instead of sailing down a second time he would have rounded the windward mark in the lead.

‘Match-racing is supposed to be close and exciting, we tried to keep it close and fun for everyone,’ said Baird. ‘They deserved to beat us. We were lucky to win that one. If things stay as they are, Peter will beat us (tomorrow), we’re going to have to step it up.’

One crew that stepped it up today was Coutts Racing. Skipper Russell Coutts (NZL) was disgusted with his team’s performance yesterday in the opening flights of the Group B round robin. They went 1-5 and put themselves in a position where they had to win today’s final race to advance to the knockout round. Mission accomplished.

Coutts and his Danish crew, the event’s reigning champions, defeated Iain Percy (GBR), of Italy’s +39 Challenge for the America’s Cup, in a light-air match. Then they defeated Jesper Radich (DEN), of Spain’s Desafío Español syndicate, 2-0 in the knockout round. Whereas yesterday they split from their competition when ahead, today they stayed glued on top, never letting their opponent a chance to breath.

Dean Barker (NZL), of Emirates Team New Zealand, won Group B with a perfect 7-0 record. The two-time Swedish Match Cup champion scored a come-from-behind win against Baird in their showdown match for the group win.

Baird led at the first windward mark by about 35 seconds in a light easterly wind around 5 knots, but Barker gybed to starboard and sailed down the middle-right of the leg in a nice puff. When he gybed to port and converged with Baird, the American used his starboard advantage to hunt Barker, but it did not work.

The crews switched sides of the race course, and when they converged again moments later, Barker crossed ahead to lead around the leeward mark. Up the second beat the crews again split sides, with Barker going hard left and Baird hard right. Barker’s side won out and he won the match.

Other quarter-final matches feature Peter Holmberg (ISV), of Alinghi, against Kelvin Harrap (NZL), of Emirates Team New Zealand, Magnus Holmberg (SWE), of Victory Challenge, versus Coutts, and Barker against Bertrand Pacé (FRA), of BMW Oracle Racing.

Swedish Match Tour partners include Swedish Match, BMW and the Match Race Association. Swedish Match Tour Official Sponsors include Musto, Sebago, Travel Places, Trident Studio and Wedgwood.

For more information on the Swedish Match Tour, its competitors and events, please visit the official Tour Web site, www.swedishmatchtour.com. Swedish Match Tour television programs may be viewed by clicking on the Tour television button on the home page of the Web site.