Chatting to the giants

A pre-Colorcraft Gold Cup conference call with series leader Magnus Holmberg and the great Peter Gilmour

Q. I have a question for Magnus. You've always sailed quite well here in Bermuda and you've always come up just a bit short at the end. Has that been somewhat frustrating for you over the years and how are you able to overcome that?
MH: It has been a bit frustrating at times. I know we've managed to be second twice. I remember two years ago, we had a spinnaker halyard that came down on the last run to the finishing line when we were in the lead, so that surely was very frustrating. I mean, as I said, it's always a very tough competition in Bermuda. I hope that we can do better this year.

What I personally think is going to be a bit interesting is the fact that to see how -- I mean, I've done a bit of match racing in the Cup boat now, and it will be interesting to see, because I can see some parts of racing the Cup boat that is actually more similar to the boats, the IOD boats, than other boats we are sailing on the circuit. So it will be interesting to see if the experience of match racing with the Cup boat can give some ideas of some things we can do differently in the IOD. That's what I'm a bit curious about the event this year.

Q. Let me ask a question here. You raise a point that the behavior of the IOD is more similar to that of a Cup boat than any of the other boats out there on the Swedish Match Sailing Tour. Peter Gilmour, your thoughts?

PG: Well, that's very true. Certainly, boats that are 80-foot long and weigh 25 ton are a lot different than the displacement ratio of most of other boats. And the IOD's have a high displacement level, so they certainly behave, you know, more similarly to the Cup boats, which I think that's why there's always very large interest in racing in Bermuda, as well as the fabulous hospitality we enjoy and the conditions there.

Yeah, I'm expecting to see, obviously, close racing and I think that the performance of the teams, it's always fascinating to see how people sort of adapt and change to the varying conditions in those boats quite quickly and I enjoy watching that as it plays out.

Q. Magnus, you alluded to some intramural match racing that you have been doing with the Victory Syndicate. How has that been going and how do you compare that with the sort of competition that you find on the Tour?

MAGNUS HOLMBERG: Well, of course the -- when you get even boat speed in the Cup boats, then I find the match racing aspect even more similar to what you experience on the Tour than I was expecting.

So I think that when you have even boat speed, I think it's . . . I think I find it quite close to what we are doing actually on the Tour. The boat speed is always the most important factor, but without the boat speed, there's not going to be any match racing; or if you have better boat speed, same thing.