Holmberg moves ahead

On day two of the Brazil Sailing Cup

Magnus Holmberg was the clear winner of the Group A round robin at the Brazil Sailing Cup, Stage 5 of the 2005-’06 World Match Racing Tour.in Angra Dos Reis.

Holmberg and his Victory Challenge crew advanced to the quarterfinal Round of the $100,000 match-racing regatta after winning the round with a 4-0 record.

Behind him there’s a three-way tie for second between Ed Baird (USA), Gavin Brady (NZL) and Thierry Peponnet (FRA). The three finished with 2-2 records. Local qualifier Daniel Glomb was fifth in the group at 0-4.

Group A enjoyed a pleasant 10- to 12-knot northeasterly this morning that made for fair racing. As Baird said: “Yesterday was very frustrating. Today was much better.”

After Group A finished its round Group B took to the water and completed two flights before the wind died away and an almighty tropical squall, complete with thunder, lightning and buckets of rain, put a halt to racing for the day. It was a good call by the race committee. Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia crewman Antar Vigna got a shock from lightning while touching the boom vang.

Ben Ainslie (GBR) and James Spithill (AUS) are tied for the Group B lead with 2-0 records. Dean Barker (NZL) and Ian Williams (GBR) are 1-1, and Cameron Dunn (NZL) and Staffan Lindberg (FIN) are 0-2.

Group B is scheduled to complete its round robin tomorrow morning.

The format of the Brazil Sailing Cup calls for the top three teams from Groups A and B to advance to the quarterfinal round. The bottom teams from each group advance to a Repechage Round that will determine the other two quarterfinalists.

In the event of a tie between three or more teams the Sailing Instructions call for a sail-off among those teams, if time permits. If time doesn’t permit, the tiebreaking system in Appendix C of the Racing Rules of Sailing will be applied.

The race committee hasn’t decided whether it will conduct the sail off. If they decide to use the system described in the appendix, Baird and Brady would advance to the quarters.


From Brazil, Ian Williams reports:

The Brazil Sailing Cup got into its stride today until a thunderstorm of epic proportions put an end to the sailing for the day. Before the downpour, the race committee was able to complete the last three flights of Group A and do our first two flights. In Group A, Magnus Holmberg dominated to top the group with, from what I saw, a three way tie for second place between Ed Baird, Gavin Brady and Thierry Pepponet. By my reckoning, Peponnet is the unlucky one who gets 4th place and has to go to the repechage round, although these results are very unofficial as the results have not been posted.

We started off our assault on the inaugural Brazil Sailing Cup against Staffan Lindberg from Finland. A misjudgement in the pre-start where we clipped the cameraman’s handrail on the back of Lindberg’s boat (luckily for the TV crew there was no cameraman on board) left us a penalty down although leading off the start line. On the very short course it was always going to be difficult to extend enough to complete a penalty and, although we did draw clear, we rounded the second (and last) top mark 3-4 lengths ahead. After a short debate, we decided that we would not be able to draw away enough to complete a penalty so we chose to “attack back” in order to draw a penalty from Lindberg and even up the position. On two occasions we thought that we may yet be able to draw away to do the penalty; the first being when Lindberg wrapped his spinnaker round the forestay, and the second being when one of his crewmen fell overboard, but on each occasion he recovered. However, approaching the committee boat at the finish we opened the door for Lindberg to try to pass between us and the committee boat to finish. Lindberg went for the gap but the rules were on our side and we managed to close the door and in so doing put a double penalty on Lindberg, giving us the race.

Next up was Ben Ainslie from Emirates Team New Zealand. On a massively biased line (it was not possible to cross the line on starboard tack), Ainslie got the better of the start and quickly pulled out a five length lead. However, we finally got our boat rolling and began to draw him in. Down the first run we got close enough to engage in a gybing duel and duly rolled over the top to take the lead into the bottom mark. Ainslie came back into the race and we rounded the top mark overlapped to leeward but slower due to some passing chop that had hit us. We gybed early onto starboard which was the gain gybe and it looked for a long while that we would lay the finish with Ainslie to leeward and behind. However, as the wind died and we were forced to sail a higher angle to keep the spinnaker set, the race came back into the balance. Finally, we reached the layline and took the gybe towards the finish but we were unable to cross ahead of Ainslie who was on starboard. The protest flags then went up with Ainslie claiming a port-starboard infringement and us claiming room at the pin. This time, the umpires came down not in our favour and gave us a double penalty, handing the race to Ainslie.

So we’re left on 1-1 overnight, equal with Dean Barker. James Spithill and Ben Ainslie lead the group on 2-0 and Staffan Lindberg and Cameron Dunn are yet to get off the mark.

Brazil Sailin g Cup Standings

Group A (After 5 of 5 flights)
1. Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge, 4-0
(Crew: Anders Dahlsjo, Niklas Carlzon, Lars Linger, Mattias Rahm)
2. Ed Baird (USA) Alinghi, 2-2
(Crew: Rodney Ardern, Nils Frei, Murray Jones, Piet Van Nieuwenhuyzen)
2= Gavin Brady (NZL) Beau Geste Sailing Team, 2-2
(Crew: Jon Gunderson, Brett Jones, Tony Rey, Geordie Shaver)
2= Thierry Peponnet (FRA) K-Challenge, 2-2
(Crew: Benoit Briand, Tanguy Cariou, Herve Cunningham, Thierry Douillard)
5. Daniel Glomb (BRA) Brazil Sailing Team, 0-4
(Crew: Eduardo Birkeland, Rene Garrafielo, Jose Paulo Barcellos, Daniel Santiago)

Group B (After 2 of 5 flights)
1. Ben Ainslie (GBR) Emirates Team New Zealand, 2-0
(Crew: Kelvin Harrap, Richard Meacham, Tony Rey, Rob Salthouse)
1= James Spithill (AUS) Luna Rossa Challenge, 2-0
(Crew: Magnus Augustsson, Michele Ivaldi, Jonathan McKee, Joe Newton)
3. Dean Barker (NZL) Emirates Team New Zealand, 1-1
(Crew: Don Cowie, James Dagg, Jared Henderson, Terry Hutchinson)
3= Ian Williams (GBR) Williams Racing Team, 1-1
(Crew: Bill Hardesty, Gerard Mitchell, Mal Parker, Mark Williams)
5. Cameron Dunn (NZL) Mascalzone Latino – Capitalia, 0-2
(Crew: Matteo Auguadro, Maciel Chicchetti, Marco Constant, Antar Vigna)
5= Staffan Lindberg (FIN) Alandia Sailing Team, 0-2
(Crew: Nils Bjerkås, Robert Skarp, Carl-Johan Uckelstam and Daniel Wallberg)

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