Skippers line up for Con Cup

Peter Gilmour and Gavin Brady to do battle again on Swedish Match Tour's Congressional Cup

ORACLE BMW Racing's helmsman Gavin Brady and Peter Gilmour, the runaway leader of the Swedish Match Tour Rankings, headline a competitive field of 10 skippers who have accepted invitations to compete at the 40th annual Congressional Cup from 19-25 April, hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club.

The Congressional Cup is event No. 4 on the 2003-'04 Swedish Match Tour, a professional sailing series of eight events contested around the world. Now in its fifth season, the Tour offers more than $800,000 in total prize money.

With a prize purse of $25,000 up for grabs at the Congressional Cup, and $6,000 slated for the winner, there are two Americans with the credentials to be considered a favorite. Ed Baird (St. Petersburg, Fla.) is the reigning World Match Racing Champion, and Terry Hutchinson (Annapolis, Md.) won the Congressional Cup in 1992.

The field also includes veteran match-racers Kelvin Harrap (NZL), an afterguard member with the OneWorld Challenge in Louis Vuitton Cup 2003, former Alinghi team member Allan Coutts (NZL), Long Beach Yacht Club local Scott Dickson (Long Beach, Calif.), Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN), Mattias Rahm (DEN) and former Team New Zealand sailor Cameron Appleton (NZL).

The Congressional Cup pits the 10 skippers against each other in a double round-robin. Sailing Catalina 37s, the top four skippers after the 18 races will advance to the semifinal round with the winners advancing to the final. The semifinal and final rounds are scheduled best-of-three.

"We look forward to racing guys the caliber of Gilmour, Hutchinson and Baird as they will push us and we will benefit from that," said Brady, 30, who will include Oracle BMW tactician John Kostecki in his crew. "We have not been match-racing since the Nippon Cup, so it will be great to be back on the Tour."

Part of the 40th annual celebrations will be the honoring of former America's Cup winning tactician and renowned broadcaster Gary Jobson. He will be presented with an honorary Crimson Blazer.

The Crimson Blazer is presented annually to the winner of the Congressional Cup, and occasionally in honor to persons who have made a significant contribution to sailing and the Congressional Cup. Jobson, who won the America's Cup in 1977 as tactician for skipper Ted Turner aboard the 12-Meter Courageous, is the voice of sailing on the U.S. television programs. He's been ESPN's expert commentator for its America's Cup Match coverage since 1987.

Brady, a New Zealander sailing for the U.S.-flagged Oracle BMW syndicate, and Gilmour (Perth, Western Australia) join Hutchinson as past winners of the Crimson Blazer. Brady, a back-to-back champion in 1996 and '97, is also the event's youngest ever champion. He was 22 years old when he won his first title.

Gilmour won his Crimson Blazer in 1988. His Pizza-La Sailing Team has dominated the Swedish Match Tour Rankings this season. Gilmour and crew Mike Mottle, Kazuhiko Sofuku and Yashiro Yaji have won two of the three events and placed third in the other.

They have the high score of 65 points, good for a 20-point lead over Sweden's Magnus Holmberg. The champion of the tour rankings list wins $60,000 of the $200,000 bonus purse offered by Swedish Match.

The Swedish Match Tour 2003-'04 season opened in Denmark last August, and regattas followed in Bermuda and Japan. After the Congressional Cup, the Tour heads to Europe for four events to close out the 2003-'04 season.

The Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman is scheduled May 3-9 in Porto Azzurro, Elba, Italy. Then the Tour visits Croatia for the ACI HTmobile Cup, May 24-29, followed by Match Race Germany, June 8-13. The season concludes with the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand, Sweden, July 5-11.