Competitors flex their muscles

Sean McNeill previews the Swedish Match Tour's Congressional Cup

Above: Skipper Peter Gilmour (right), who leads the Swedish Match Tour after three events, checks the readout on crew member Yasuhiro Yaji. Congressional Cup chairman Charlie Legeman adjusts the scales as Molly McCloud records the numbers.


The boats have been drawn. The rotation is set. The 40th Congressional Cup, event No. 4 on the 2003-'04 Swedish Match Tour, is set to begin competition tomorrow at 12:00pm local time in Long Beach, CA.

The five-day regatta features 10 crews racing Catalina 37s in a match-racing format. The Congressional Cup offers a prize purse of $25,000, with the champion winning $6,000.

The line-up includes Australian Peter Gilmour, the runaway leader of the Swedish Match Tour Championship Leaderboard, and Oracle BMW Racing's helmsman Gavin Brady of New Zealand, placed 7th on the leaderboard.

There's a trio of Americans competing including Ed Baird, the reigning match racing world champion, Terry Hutchinson, the 1992 Congressional Cup champion, and local favourite Scott Dickson of host Long Beach Yacht Club.

They're joined by three other New Zealanders including Kelvin Harrap, representing Team New Zealand, Cameron Appleton, winner of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's International Match Race Regatta in February, and Alan Coutts, the nephew of three-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts.

Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen, third overall on the Swedish Match Tour the last two years, and Sweden's Mattias Rahm, two-time Swedish match-racing champion, round out the field.

"I sort of see Gilly, Ed and Gavin through to the semifinals," said Hutchinson. "That leaves the rest of us fighting it out for the last spot."

Tomorrow's matches include Harrap vs. Appleton in a battle of current and former Team New Zealand sailors, and Baird vs. Hutchinson. Baird beat Hutchinson last month at the Annapolis Cup, a tune-up regatta in Annapolis, Md.

The Congressional Cup format includes a double round-robin. Each crew will race the other twice for a total of 18 races. The top four at the end of the rounds robin advance to the semifinals, with the two winners advancing to the finals. Both the semis and finals are scheduled for Saturday, 24 April.

Principal Race Officer Bob Frazier, concerned with the possibility of flukey conditions if the Santa Ana winds develop, hopes to conduct five flights each of the first two days.

The seabreeze (from south/southwest) is expected to blow tomorrow and Wednesday, but the conditions could get dicey on Thursday when Santa Ana winds are predicted. The seabreeze, which flows onshore, and the Santa Ana, which flows offshore, work against each other and make for frustrating conditions.

"We'll see how it goes," said Frazier. "I'd like to get as much racing done in the first couple of days as possible in case the winds don't cooperate later in the week."

Below: Gavin Brady (seated foreground) discusses strategy with tactician John
Kostecki and his Oracle BMW team on Monday's practice day before the start
of the 40th Congressional Cup at Long Beach.