Into the semi finals

Women move onto next stage at Swedish Match Cup

The three Swedes from the arranging club GKSS – Marie Björling, Linda Rahm and Malin Milbourn - are all passing on to the semi finals in the Swedish Match Cup. Number one female sailor in the world, Claire Leroy from France, is joining them.

Björling and her Team Schenker won the round-robin with six victories and only one loss and thereby she can choose her opponent in the semi final. "We are performing better and better every day and it's going to be great with the semifinals, but we haven't decided yet what team to meet in the semi." said tactician Anna Holmdahl.

Tuesday morning offered a brilliant sun and fairly stabile winds on 10-20 knots. Marie Björling and her crew – Anna Holmdahl, Elisabeth Nilsson, Jenny Axhede, Anna-Karin Öjerskog and Annika Carlunger – opened with victories over both danes Lotte Meldgaard-Pedersen and Nina Braestrup. In the finishing race against the club companion Malin Millbourn the race became much tighter than anyone ever could expect before start. Millbourn & Co were forced to bring the sails down to make an immediate repair of the inner end of the boom by the mast.

"There was a crack in the rig just a minute before we were about to sail towards start for the opening of the pre-start against Marie. The girls judged that we would have to take the sails down to repair whatever was wrong, so we had two penalties for not beginning the pre-start in time," said Malin. "We got the sails up again and we succeeded to start on time, but then we had to take one of the penalties immediately by doing a 360 degrees turn with the boat. So, we ended up at a far distance after Marie right away," she continued.

There were problems on Maries boat too, including a square meter large hole in the spinnaker from the first setting. "We sailed on but we were handling the sail that was left over on the spinnaker very carefully for it not to break totally in the wind," commented Anna Holmdahl.

On the second upwind Millbourn took some windshifts and caught up and finally overtook Björling. When the last downwind began Millbourn had a one and a half boat lengths lead. Malin & Co did not however succeed to extend the lead enough to be able to make their second penalty.

"We tried to do it shortly before the finishing line, but we didn't have enough lead so Marie could sail by and cross the finishing line first," said Millbourn after the race.

Preliminary results after round-robin for ladies in the Swedish Match Cup. The first four are semi finalists:

1. Marie Björling, SWE, 6 victories – 1 loss
2. Claire Leroy, FRA, 5-2
3. Linda Rahm, SWE, 5-2
4. Malin Millbourn, SWE, 4-3

5. Lotte Meldgaard-Pedersen, DEN, 3-4
6. Christelle Philippe, FRA, 2-5
7. Nina Braestrup, DEN, 2-5
8. Sandy Hayes, USA, 1-6

The ladies are sailing their semi finals on Wednesday afternoon and the finals are on Saturday.