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The bigs guns head for the King Edward VII Gold Cup

Five of the top eight skippers on the current Swedish Match Tour leaderboard are among the eight seeded skippers for the championship round of the King Edward VII Gold Cup scheduled Oct. 19-25, the third of eight stages on the sixth Tour season.

Ed Baird (St. Petersburg, Fla.), who holds the unique double of No. 1 on the Tour leaderboard and in the world, heads the list of seeded skippers for the Gold Cup. Baird, who shares the Tour lead with Jes Gram-Hansen (Arhus, Denmark), each with 25 points, has competed in Bermuda on numerous occasions, but has never placed higher than third.

Racing as Team Capital XL with his core crew of Andy Horton and Jon Ziskind, plus bowman Pete van Nieuwenhuyzen of Team Alinghi, Baird's optimistic he can change that this year.

"I am very proud of my team's accomplishments over the past three years, but if we have learned anything it's that each event is unique, even each race sometimes. That's the fun of these events," said Baird.

He'll have to overcome defending Gold Cup champion Peter Gilmour (Perth, Western Australia) and the Pizza-La Sailing Team, including Mike Mottl and Yasuhiro Yaji. Gilmour and the Pizza-La team claimed the 2003 Gold Cup with a 3-2 victory over Chris Dickson en route to winning the Tour championship last year. A victory this year would be Gilmour's fourth career win in Bermuda.

The seeded skippers also include Russell Coutts (Fechy, Switzerland) and Dennis Conner (San Diego, Calif.), the two most dominant personalities in the America's Cup in the last 30 years.

Coutts and Conner are the most successful Cup skippers in history. Coutts has won three consecutive times and owns a 14-race winning streak in the Cup Match dating back to '95.

His hegemony followed on the heels of Conner, who dominated the Cup scene between 1974 and 1988, winning on four different occasions. Only three other skippers have won the Cup Match during their decades-long reign.

Despite a lack of match-racing since last year's Gold Cup, Conner has been busy on the Etchells circuit. He placed 5th at the Etchells Worlds in Brisbane, Australia, and 8th at the North Americans in San Francisco, Calif., to retain his No. 1 world ranking in the class. He's been busy with other projects as well.

"I've been restoring an 80-year-old wooden sloop to perfect condition that will be re-launched Oct. 14," Conner said. "I'm looking forward to seeing our friends at the 'convention' in Bermuda. Bermuda is special, and with many close friends living there it is an event that I really look forward to attending."

Baird, Coutts and Gilmour are ranked among the top three on the Tour leaderboard, and are joined as seeds by Staffan Lindberg (Mariehamn, Finland) and Mathieu Richard (Nantes, France). Björn Hansen (Stockholm, Sweden) is another seeded skipper

Australia's James Spithill (Sydney, Australia) completes the seeded lineup. The 25-year-old who helmed the OneWorld Challenge to third in the 2002-'03 Louis Vuitton Cup is now the helmsman for the Luna Rossa Challenge of Italy.

"We've only done three regattas this year, but we've won them all," said Spithill, who finished second overall on the 2001-'02 Tour championship. "I feel a little rusty, but I love Bermuda. It's going to be a good event."

The eight seeds will be paired against eight crews who advanced from the qualifier regatta in the three days (Oct. 16-18) prior to the championship round.