Swedish Match Tour returns to Italy

Ainslie to lead team alongside Coutts, Baird, Gilmour, etc at Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman in May

The Swedish Match Tour resumes its sixth racing season in five weeks with the Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman, and the action promises to be dynamite.

An all-star lineup of America’s Cup Class helmsmen, both present and past, has accepted invitations to the fourth annual Elba Cup (4-8 May, 2005), which features a 75,000 Euro (approximately $97,000) prize purse.

American Ed Baird, leader of the 2004-’05 Tour standings with 65 points, heads the field of luminaries. Baird opened the ’04-’05 season with two victories in three starts, a 37-8 (.822) record on the water, and more than $74,000 in prize money.

The newest helmsman in Cup defendere Team Alinghi’s afterguard, filling the void created by the firing of three-time Cup-winning skipper Russell Coutts, Baird is in full-push mode to win the Tour championship, the $60,000 bonus and a BMW 545i Touring.

The winner of the inaugural Elba Cup (2002) is expected to compete in the upcoming Tour events in Europe (Italy, Germany and Croatia), looking to solidify his standing.

Reigning champion Russell Coutts of New Zealand has also confirmed his intent to compete. Coutts isn’t allowed to race with another team in America’s Cup 2007 due to his settlement with Alinghi founder Ernesto Bertarelli, but there are no such restrictions on him on the Swedish Match Tour. He might sail in three or four events this year.

Coutts, who has the most wins, five, in the fewest starts, nine, in the history of the Tour, looks to become the first repeat champion of the Elba Cup with his Danish crew featuring Jes Gram-Hansen and Christian Kamp. Coutts lies in second place on the Swedish Match Tour standings for 2004-’05 with 45 points, trailing Baird by 20 points.

Last year Coutts got off to a horrendous start at the Elba Cup. Racing with a crew of Alinghi team members, he was just 1-5 and placed 12th in the field of 12 after the third day. Then he started winning, and next thing everyone realized he’d knocked off Peter Gilmour and the Pizza-La Sailing Team in the final, 2-1.

Gilmour, another Tour all-star, returns to Elba with familiar crewmembers Mike Mottl and Yasuhiro Yaji. The reigning champions of the Swedish Match Tour look to improve on a string of fifth-place finishes at the beginning of the season that has left them fourth on the Tour leaderboard with 42 points.

Peter Holmberg of the U.S. Virgin Islands is slated to lead a second Alinghi crew. The past champion of the Swedish Match Tour (2002-’03) helmed Alinghi’s SUI-64 in the three Louis Vuitton Acts for the America’s Cup last fall, wining Act 3 in Valencia, Spain. Holmberg placed third at the season-opening Portugal Match Cup last July.

Sweden’s Magnus Holmberg is another past Elba Cup champion (2003) in the lineup. He sat out the first half of the ’04-’05 Tour season, but returns in the colors of Sweden’s Victory Challenge for the America’s Cup, for which he is assembling the crew. Holmberg’s six career Tour wins rank him as the most victorious skipper in the history of the Tour.

“The event organisers, Antonio Nappi and his team, have done a phenomenal job putting together this lineup,” said Swedish Match Tour Director Scott MacLeod. “With so many America’s Cup, world and Olympic champions on hand, the field is outstanding. It’s a great start to the second half of the Tour season.”

The past champions may find the fourth Elba Cup more different than the first three. The IMX 40, the boat of choice for the first three editions, is being replaced in favor of the Swedish Match 40, the Tour’s specially designed match-racer from legendary designer Pelle Petterson.

The Swedish Match 40 requires two fewer crew than the IMX 40 and has much lower freeboards, which could make the going wet for crews in the short chop that can be frequent in the spectacular Bay of Porto Azzurro.

The line-up continues with Francesco de Angelis of Italy and Australian James Spithill, both of Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge. De Angelis hasn’t competed on Tour in a few years, but Spithill placed second to Coutts in Bermuda last October, and lies in a tie for eighth on the Tour leaderboard with 20 points.

New Zealander Gavin Brady leads the BMW Oracle Racing Team. Brady has more second and third place finishes than any other skipper on Tour without ever having won an event. Brady’s last showing on Tour was a seventh in Japan last November.

France’s Thierry Peponnet makes his Tour debut. An afterguard member of French challengers in 1995 and 2000, Peponnet joins the Tour as skipper and helmsman of France’s K-Challenge.

Two British Olympic gold medalists will attempt their hand at match-racing. Ben Ainslie, who won Olympic gold in the Laser (2000) and Finn (2004) classes, returns to the Tour first the first time since 2001 leading a crew from Emirates Team New Zealand. Although confirmation is still forthcoming, Iain Percy, gold medalist in the Finn class (2000), is expected to represent Italy’s +39 Challenge.

Swedish Match Tour Standings
(After 4 of 8 stages)
1. Ed Baird (USA) 65 points
2. Russell Coutts (NZL) 45 points
T. Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN) 45 points
4. Peter Gilmour (AUS) 40 points
5. Staffan Lindberg (FIN) 26 points
6. Philippe Presti (FRA) 24 points
7. Mathieu Richard (FRA) 21 points
8. Kelvin Harrap (NZL) 20 points
T. James Spithill (AUS) 20 points

Toscana Elba Cup Entrants (as of Mar. 30, 2005)
Ben Ainslie (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand – Two-time Olympic gold medalist
Ed Baird (USA) Team Alinghi – Leads Swedish Match Tour standings
Gavin Brady (NZL) BMW Oracle Racing – Most top-three finishes without a victory
Russell Coutts (NZL) Coutts Racing – Most wins, 5, in fewest starts, 9, on Tour
Francesco de Angelis (ITA) Luna Rossa Challenge – First Tour appearance since 2001
Peter Gilmour (AUS) Pizza-La Sailing Team – Reigning Swedish Match Tour champion
Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge – Tour career victories leader, 6
Peter Holmberg (ISV) Team Alinghi – Past Tour champion (2002-’03)
Thierry Peponnet (FRA) K-Challenge – Making Tour debut as skipper
Iain Percy* (GBR) +39 Challenge – Potential Tour debut
James Spithill (AUS) Luna Rossa Challenge – Tied for 8th on Tour leaderboard
(* unconfirmed)

Upcoming 2004-’05 Swedish Match Tour Schedule
May 1-8: Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman (Porto Azzurro, Italy)
May 11-16: Match Race Germany (Langenargen, Germany)
May 23-28: ACI HTmobile Cup (Split, Croatia)
July 4-10: Swedish Match Cup (Marstrand, Sweden)