Swedish Match Tour 2004-5

Dates announced for new season, starting with bonanza event in Cascais

The schedule for the sixth season of the Swedish Match Tour is finalised. Nine events comprise the 2004-’05 Tour calendar with total prize money exceeding $1 million, a milestone for the professional sailing series.

The 2004-’05 schedule kicks off with the Portugal Match Cup on 27-31 July. Organised by the Naval Club of Cascais and the Sun Sailing Team, the new Tour event is making a notable debut.

The Portugal Match Cup offers a 150,000 Euro (approximately £100,000) prize purse with 40,000 Euro (approximately £26,000) earmarked for the champion - the biggest prize money on the Tour.

Racing is to be held off Cascais on the Portugese Riviera, which was a finalist in the bidding to host America’s Cup 2007, and for the first time will be held in the new Swedish Match 40, the Pelle Petterson-designed match-racer.

The Portugal Match Cup purchased six of the designs from builder Maxi Yachts and marketing partner Sailnet, and they were sailed for the first time last weekend off Cascais.

“The Swedish Match 40 is a unique design based on the most recent America’s Cup class yachts,” said Petterson, who designed and skippered Sweden’s 12-Metre Severige in the 1977 America’s Cup trials. “The Swedish Match 40 will provide sailors and teams a perfect tool to develop their match-racing skills on the road to the next America’s Cup in 2007.”

An all-star lineup will put the boats through a rigorous test. Reigning Swedish Match Tour champion Peter Gilmour (AUS), skipper of the Pizza-La Sailing Team, headlines the field along with Russell Coutts (NZL), who won the Swedish Match Cup a week and a half ago in Marstrand, Sweden.

“The Portugal Match Cup looks to be a good event,” said Coutts, who finished fourth overall in the ’03-’04 Tour. “I sailed a regatta there earlier this year in Dragons, and I loved the conditions.”

Representatives of five America’s Cup syndicates are scheduled to compete, including Swedish Match Tour veterans Peter Holmberg (USVI), a past Tour champion (2002) and helmsman for America’s Cup defender Team Alinghi of Switzerland, and Bertrand Pacé (FRA), also a past Tour champion (2000) and trial helmsman for the BMW Oracle Racing Team.

They’re joined by Geoff Meek (RSA), skipper of the Shosholoza syndicate from South Africa, Philippe Presti (FRA), of the le Défi Français challenge, and Michael Dunstan (AUS), helmsman for the OzBoyz Challenge of Australia.

Also included in the field are Ed Baird (USA), a two-time match-racing world champion, Chris Law (GBR), skipper of The Outlaws, Jesper Radich (DEN), the 2003 Tour champion, Staffan Lindberg (FIN) and local representative Francisco Neto (POR).

After the Portugal Match Cup there’s a week’s hiatus before the Tour heads north of Copenhagen for the Danish Open, on 11-15 August on Skovshoved Harbour. A field of 12 crews will compete in the same DS 37s used at the Swedish Match Cup for a share of the DKK 200,000 (approximately £18,000) prize purse.

A two-month layoff ensues before the Tour concludes the 2004 calendar year with events in Bermuda (October) and Japan (November). After a break over the New Year holiday, events follow in the U.S. (April 2005), Italy, Germany and Croatia (all May 2005), before the annual concluding event in Sweden (July 2005).

2004-’05 Swedish Match Tour Schedule
July 27-31, 2004: Portugal Match Cup (Cascais, Portugal)
Aug. 11-15, 2004: Danish Open (Skovshoved, Denmark)
Oct. 17-24, 2004: Bermuda Gold Cup (Hamilton, Bermuda)
Nov. 15-21, 2004: Nippon Cup (Hayama, Japan)
Apr. 11-16, 2005: Congressional Cup (Long Beach, Calif.)
May 1-8, 2005: Toscana Elba Cup (Porto Azzurro, Italy)
May 11-16, 2005: Match Race Germany (Langenargen, Germany)
May 22-28, 2005: ACI HTmobile Cup (Split, Croatia)
July 4-10, 2005: Swedish Match Cup (Marstrand, Sweden)