Gilmour v Pace

Show down of the old hands at Match Race Germany

Peter Gilmour’s Pizza-La Sailing Team will meet Bertrand Pacé’s French crew tomorrow for the championship of Match Race Germany, the penultimate event on the Swedish Match Tour 2003-’04.

Gilmour and Pacé advanced to the final by finishing 1-2 in Round Robin C at the 9th annual event on Lake Constance, bordering Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The final is a rematch of the Swedish Match Tour final in Croatia two weeks ago, where Pacé defeated Gilmour 3-0 in a series plagued by light winds. Gilmour is out for revenge.

“He’s got bragging rights until tomorrow,” said Gilmour. “This regatta’s all but over, now it’s for bragging rights.”

With the final still to sail, Gilmour was referring to the race for the Mercedes Benz SLK 200, offered at Match Race Germany by event sponsor Wuerttembergische Versicherungsagentur Speth.

Gilmour and his Pizza-La Sailing Team, including Mike Mottl (AUS), Kazuhiko Sofuku (JPN), Yasuhiro Yaji (JPN) and local sailor Carsten Kemmling (GER), were the first to reach 10 consecutive wins when they defeated Jes Gram-Hansen’s Team Denmark (Rasmus Kostner, Christian Kamp, Michael Arnhild, Henning Sohm) in their fifth race of Round Robin C.

In doing so they ran their record 10-0 (combined record between Rounds Robin A and C) and won the silver SLK roadster. Gilmour said it wasn’t the biggest prize he’s ever won (he won $100,000 twice before), but the win brought a level of satisfaction.

“It’s nice because that prize is greater than the prize money offered to the winner,” Gilmour said. “There was great incentive to win the car.”

The Euro 20,000 prize purse (approximately $24,000) includes Euro 4,800 (approx. $5,700) for the winner and Euro 2,800 (approx. $2,800) for second place. The Mercedes was valued at approximately Euro 40,000 (approximately $48,000)

Conditions for Day 4 of Match Race Germany were ideal. After a slow morning that included a two-hour postponement amid attempted starts, a fresh northwesterly breeze filled around 15 knots. It would veer to the right and blow from the north as the day progressed, but the strength never dropped below 12 knots.

While the Pizza-La Sailing Team won all seven of its Round C races, Pacé’s French crew, including Benoit Briand, Thierry Fouchier, Fabrice Levet, Claas de Jong, finished Round C with a 5-2 record, but had to wait out the final flight between Gilmour and New Zealander Gavin Brady’s BMW Oracle Racing Team (Dirk de Ridder, Sean Clarkson, Brad Webb, Andreas John).

Brady entered that match with a 5-1 record. A win over Gilmour would put him in the final. A loss would give the spot to Pacé, who owned the tiebreaker over Brady due to his win in Flight 2.

Pacé wondered if Gilmour would throw the race to give Brady the final slot, but Gilmour never throws a race. Now Pacé knows he’ll have his hands full tomorrow.

“It’s tough enough to beat Gilly in one match,” Pacé said. “I think I started well in Croatia, but I haven’t been doing that here. I’ll have to regain that timing if I’m going to beat him again.”

Brady will meet Gram-Hansen for the Petit Final. Brady finished Round C with a 5-2 mark, while Gram-Hansen finished 4-3.

Gram-Hansen had a great run going here, but two bad starts and one case of bad luck kept him out of the final.

Gram-Hansen’s starts against Gilmour and Brady were atypical of the performance he displayed in earlier racing.

Against Gilmour in the race for the Mercedes, Gram-Hansen tacked to leeward of Gilmour as the start gun sounded, and was promptly rolled off the line.

Against Brady, he misjudged the line by 2 seconds and wound up wrapped all over the race committee boat.

The bad luck came against Pacé. Team Denmark won the start to windward of Pacé and led him around the first lap of the two-lap race.

They continued to lead up the second beat, protecting the left side of the leg in the belief that there was more pressure to the left.

By pushing Pacé to the right the Frenchman found a right-hand wind shift so that when they met again Pacé used his starboard-tack advantage to gain the lead. He won by one boatlength.

The main story of the day, though, was the race for the car. Gilmour won it at the start, but now has the dilemma of what to do with it. The car is right-hand drive, but Australia is a left-hand drive country. Gram-Hansen had a solution.

“We offered to keep it in Denmark while they’re in Australia,” Gram-Hansen said. “I have a big garage for that.”

Late this afternoon, sail-offs were held for fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth overall. France’s Luc Pillot defeated compatriot Mathieu Richard for fifth, while Switzerland’s Eric Monin beat Tino Ellegast of Germany for seventh.

FINAL ROUND ROBIN C STANDINGS
(After 10 flights)
1. Peter Gilmour/AUS, Pizza-La Sailing Team, 7-0
Crew: Yasuhiro Yaji, Mike Mottl, Kazuhiko Sofuku, Carsten Kemmling
2. Bertrand Pacé/FRA, 5-2
Crew: Benoit Briand, Thierry Fouchier, Fabrice Levet, Claas de Jong
3. Gavin Brady/NZL, BMW Oracle Racing, 5-2
Crew: Dirk de Ridder, Sean Clarkson, Brad Webb, Andreas John
4. Jes Gram-Hansen/DEN, Team Denmark, 4-3
Crew: Rasmus Kostner, Christian Kamp, Michael Arnhild, Henning Sohm
5. Luc Pillot/FRA, 3-4
Crew: Tanguy Cariou, Christian Scherrer, Teva Plichart, Florian Weser
6. Mathieu Richard (FRA), 2-5
Crew: Yannick Simon, Olivier Herledand, Pierre-Alexis Ponset, Christoph Fuchs
7. Tino Ellegast/GER, 1-6
Crew: Arne Gülzow, Rudi Monteu, Philipp Hofstetter, Holger Lehning
8. Eric Monin/SUI, 1-6
Crew: Jean-Claude Monin, Marc Monin, Alain Marchand, Caspar Büttner