No2

The Daily Sail speaks to world no2 match racer Jes Gram-Hansen currently taking part in the Bermuda Gold Cup

In fact Victory Challenge has scooped up many Danes from helmsman Jesper Bank to bowman Henrik Blakskjaer, Morten Halkier, Claus Olesen, Mickel Rossberg and Kasper Vang. "However the world gets smaller and you see a lot of different nationalities on different teams, so if Denmark is not capable of making a serious America’s Cup campaign, my team and I will do whatever we can to get involved some day."

Back to the matter in hand and there is still the matter of the remaining races of the Bermuda Gold Cup. Gram-Hansen rates Chris Law and Peter Bromby as the main competition. "Chris Law - you can never look away from him. He has done the event a lot of times. He showed that he capable of winning in Newport [at the UBS Challenge]. I also expect, Peter Bromby to do well. He is always good in these boats and fast and sails smart. And maybe Jesper Radich will be strong here. It is his first time here but he has been doing well this year and if he can find the rhythm in these boats he has the match race skills to do it."

In the meantime today will see Gram-Hansen lining up against women's match racer Paula Lewin. "Paula Lewin won the girls event. She knows the boats well and knows the area well. They have been sailing well. They beat our fellow countryman Lars Nordbjerg in four races 3:1. I have seen the girls racing out here and they are sailing quite well.

"Paula could be the big surprise of the Gold Cup this year!"

Funding

Like all up and coming pro-sailors Gram-Hansen and his team struggled for a long time to pay to take part in their sport. If there was a match race in the Mediterranean, they would jump into a car and drive there from Denmark...

"For the first two to three years on the tour, we funded it by outselves. Last year, we were supported by a casino in Copenhagen Marenlust. The owner of this casino was into sailing and at the time when we really had difficulty finding the money, he stood up and gave us some money to help us continue on the Swedish Match Tour. Now we are working together with a Swedish company called Victory Lane run by Marten Hedlund who is also a match racer and is also our manager now. Right now we are working together with Deloitte & Touche, Helly Hansen and Audi in Sweden. Those are our partners."

Gram-Hasen's advice for those who want to take up match racing professionally:

"It doesn’t matter that much what kind of boat you race. What helped me a lot, was to go out on the water and do a lot of practise against people that were better than I was back then. I did a lot of practice with people like Morten Henriksen and Magnus Holmberg. They invited me to come and practise and that helped me a lot to understand the game.

If I was a young sailor today looking at a match race career, I would do my very best to try to get practise time against the people that have been out there on the Tour. When I was racing against Magnus 6-8 years ago now, I did a lot of travelling to get to his place in Sweden and practice against him and his team. But you have to put in a lot of time, if you want to make it to the top. My advice to a young team that want to take up match racing is to never be shy, and to call up some of the good guys and ask them if they want to do some practice. I’m pretty sure a lot of them would like to do that if they have time."