Victory to Bank

Sean McNeill reports from the final of the Danish Open match racing

To the delight of the home crowd, local hero Jesper Bank won his first career Swedish Match Tour event when he captured the 9th annual Danish Open. Bank and crew Henrik Blaksjaer, Thomas Jacobsen, Mike Mottl and Jan Schoepe of United Internet Team Germany, defeated Gavin Brady (NZL), BMW Oracle Racing, to win the championship, but they didn’t do it in the final.

Bank relied on the fortune of his undefeated first day and a head-to-head victory over Brady in Flight 1, Match 3 last Thursday to secure the championship. The first to 3 points series ended in a 2-2 tie when the fifth and final flight was abandoned due to lack of wind and the 4:00 p.m. time limit.

Bank’s first win on the Swedish Match Tour earned him DKK112,500 (approximately £10,300) of the DKK375,000 (approx. £34,400) prize purse. Brady, sailing with Rodney Daniel, Ross Halcrow, Ed Smyth and Brad Webb, won DKK75,000 (approx. £6,900) for finishing second.

“We always seem to get involved in matches that just keep going,” said Bank, who was on the wrong end of a protracted final at Match Race Germany in May. “This was a long day.” Prior to the final, the remaining two flights of semifinals races were sailed.

Mentally taxing rather than physically demanding, the morning started with light winds that waned as the day progressed. The breeze progressively wound round from southwest to the east during the day. Flags hung limp at Shovshoved Harbour. Even the electricity generating wind turbines that pepper the Oresund were shut down. As a result, the length of the four leg course was made shorter and shorter by the race committee. By the fourth race of the final, the leg length was only four times the start line. Having tried as hard as he could to run a full final, Principal Race Officer Jan Schluter was eventually forced to cut the final short with the score tied 2-2 when the time limit arrived.

Most of the crews at Skovshoved have had half an eye across the Oresund to Malmo, Sweden, where the next Louis Vuitton Acts will be held in two weeks. The ship bringing their America’s Cup sloops from Valencia passed Copenhagen on Saturday and will be unloaded on Monday. “This sets us up nicely for Malmo,” said Bank. “It proves when we are in equal equipment we can be competitive with anyone.”

Australian Mike Mottl, winner at the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand four weeks ago with Peter Gilmour before joining United Internet Team Germany, said: “I’ve wanted to sail with Jesper for a long time. He’s something of a master in light, fluky conditions.”

What gratified Bank was less how he got around the course and more about his starts. “Gavin is one of the best in the pre-start, so I was pleased that most times I could get the side I wanted,” said the skipper of the German team.

The manner of losing was tough on Brady but he was upbeat. “To be tied on 2-2 and having to go back to a race four days ago to split us shows how even the crews were,” he said.

Brady has sailed like a man with a burden lifted from his shoulders. He accepts the internal tensions of the Chris Dickson-led BMW Oracle Racing syndicate have meant the sailing team has underperformed far too often over the past year. “Everyone knows that there is a lot going on off the water,” he said. “The difference at this regatta is that I am enjoying my racing again. BMW Oracle Racing is a great team and I came here with a different crew. We had a lot of motivation to show what we are really capable of.”

Brady won the first race of the final despite incurring a pre-start penalty, proving that Bank wasn’t the only master of the light conditions. “There are a lot of passing lanes if you hang tough,” said Brady. “It’s very difficult to defend a lead.”

Bank managed that in the next two races and he seemed near certain of nailing Brady in the fourth race when the Kiwi was over the line early and had to re-start. Coming down the fourth leg, Bank’s lead was commanding, but he stayed on the seaward of the run right into the corner. When he jibed for the line onto port, he found Brady had come from 53 seconds behind, down the middle of the course, and across him on starboard gybe. Brady bore away for line to square the match.



The Danish crowd was as deflated as the wind, but their mood lifted 20 minutes later when racing was abandoned and they realized that Bank was champion after all.

Bank won his final berth thanks to a hair’s breadth finish in the deciding fifth semi-final race against Dean Barker’s (NZL) Emirates Team New Zealand crew. The race committee gave the margin as 20cm.

“It’s just depressing. We can’t seem to be able to shake the guy,” said Barker’s tactician Terry Hutchinson (USA), wondering how Bank bounced back when they thought they had him soundly beaten. It was a sentiment that used to be prevalent when the Soling was in the Olympics. Bank is a hard man to get in front off; even harder to remain there, as Brady found later.

Barker’s crew had to re-group from their morning loss to face Jochen Schuemann’s (GER) Alinghi crew for 3rd and 4th place Petit Final. This went 2-1 to the Alinghi team.

“Of course we are disappointed to miss the final because we felt we were so close,” said Schuemann. “But this is a good result in terms of developing our squad. Only one of my crew raced with Peter (Holmberg) in Portugal as we continue to rotate crew. Our goal is to have a squad where every individual can be substituted by another with no loss of competitiveness.”


Danish Open Final Standings
Prize Purse: DKK375,000 (approximately $62,000)
Skipper (Country) Team, Record, Prize Money*
1. Jesper Bank (DEN) United Internet Team Germany, 13-7, DKK112,500 (approx. $18,600)
(Crew: Henrik Blaksjaer, Thomas Jacobsen, Mike Mottl, Jan Schoepe)
2. Gavin Brady (NZL) BMW Oracle Racing, 12-8, DKK75,000 (approx. $12,400)
(Crew: Rodney Daniel, Ross Halcrow, Ed Smyth, Brad Webb)
3. Jochen Schuemann (GER) Alinghi, 13-6, DKK56,250 (approx. $9,300)
(Crew: Claudio Celon, Yann Guniot, Matt Mitchell, Peter van Niekerk)
4. Dean Barker (NZL) Emirates Team New Zealand, 11-8, DKK45,000 (approx. $7,400)
(Crew: Don Cowie, Jared Henderson, Terry Hutchinson, Grant Loretz)
5. Henrik Jensen (DEN) Team Jensen, 9-4, DKK33,750 (approx. $5,500)
(Crew: Nils Bjerregård, Mads Juhl, Erik Lund, Anton Wester)
6. Lars Nordbjaerg (DEN) Team Nordbjaerg, 7-6, DKK22,500 (approx. $3,700)
(Crew: Jeppe Blak, Jesper Feldt, Niels Gramkov, Thomas Hartvig)
7. Jesper Radich (DEN) Desafío Español, 6-7, DKK16,875 (approx. $2,700)
(Crew: Jaime Hansen, Hartwell Jordan, Pablo Rosano, Mikkel Røssberg)
8. Thierry Peponnet (FRA) K-Challenge, 6-7, DKK13,125 (approx. $2,100)
(Crew: Cameron Appleton, Matt Cornwell, Herve Cunningham, Jim Turner)
9. Philippe Presti (FRA) Luna Rossa Challenge, 4-7
(Crew: Thierry Fouchier, Fred Guilmin, Fabrice Levet, Matthieu Renault)
10. Chris Law (GBR) Team Shosholoza, 4-7
(Crew: Ian Ainslie, Michael Giles, Golden Mgedeza, Mark Sadler)
11. Pierre Mas (FRA) China Team, 2-9
(Crew: Jean Marie Dauris, Xavier Husson, Philippe Mourniac, Piotr Przybylski)
12. Flavio Favini (ITA) Mascalzone Latino – Capitalia, 0-11
(Crew: Alberto Barovier, Lars Borgstrom, Antar Vigna, Vasco Vascotto)
(*USD amounts based on 8/14/05 exchange rate of 1 DKK = 0.166669USD)

Danish Open Final*
Jesper Bank (DEN), United Internet Team Germany, 2
Gavin Brady (NZL), BMW Oracle Racing, 2
(*Series decided in favor of Jesper Bank on countback due to head-to-head win in Flight 1, Match 3)

Danish Open Petit Final
Jochen Schuemann (GER), Alinghi, 2
Dean Barker (NZL), Emirates Team New Zealand, 1

5th and 6th Place Sail-off
Henrik Jensen (DEN), 2
Lars Nordbjaerg (DEN), 0

Swedish Match Tour Leaderboard
(After 2 of 9 stages)
1. Peter Holmberg (ISV) Alinghi, 25 points
T. Jesper Bank (DEN) United Internet Team Germany, 25 points
3. Ben Ainslie (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand, 20 points
T. Gavin Brady (NZL) BMW Oracle Racing, 20 points
5. Peter Gilmour (AUS) PST, 15 points
T. Jochen Schuemann (GER) Alinghi, 15 points
7. Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN) Gram-Hansen Racing, 12 points
T. Dean Barker (NZL) Emirates Team New Zealand, 12 points


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