The Swedish Holmberg

In part 2 of our inteview with him, Magnus Holmberg talks about the Swedish Match Tour

Another aspect of the Tour is that it provides AC teams with the opportunity to see their piers in action and to analyse their styles. "Everyone has a certain style in their sailing," says Holmberg. "Peter Holmberg is an agreesive starting helmsman and on the race course - when he gets the opportunity. Others are not so agressive. Ed Baird has a different style that is not as aggressive but he is still doing very well in his way of sailing." And what of Barker and Coutts? "There is a different style again. Maybe Coutts has become a less aggressive sailor than he used to be. I think he is hanging back a little more than he used to. I think Dean is a more aggressive sailor than Russell is, at least on the Tour. Of course I haven't seen that much of Russell on the Tour."

Finally I am interested in getting Holmberg's thoughts on why, with the Swedish Match Tour, the Volvo Ocean Race and two Volvo Ocean 60 entries in and now an America's Cup campaign, Sweden has become one of the major players in international yacht racing.

"Definitely sailing as a sport is in very good shape [in Sweden] and I think there are very good reasons for that," he says. "One is that there have been a couple of sponsored projects that have been very successful. The old Whitbread challenges, Intrum Justitia and EF and so on have been very successful commercially. I think also the Swedish Match Cup has also had something to do with it. That's been successful for the company. So it has proved that sailing is a good sport to be sponsoring. And then also in Sweden we don't have that many people who race sailboats, but there are a lot of boats, a lot of people are out cruising in the archipelago in the summer so there's a foundation of a lot of people who spend a lot of time out on the water."

This has inevitably bred national sports 'stars. To date these have been Whitbread/Volvo types, notably Roger Nilson, Magnus Olsen and Gunnar Krantz, Holmberg says that Olympic sailor Freddie Loof is gaining profile. But come this autumn Sweden may have a new sailing star in their top match racer.