Congressional
Cup - Gilmour, Brady Head 40th Congressional Cup
Fleet
LONG
BEACH, Calif.---Step aside, day sailors, because
there will be some serious match racing going
on in the Long Beach Yacht Club's 40th Congressional
Cup Tuesday through Saturday.
 |
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. Photo © Rich Roberts
|
It's
the only American stop on the 2003-04 Swedish
Match Tour currently led by Australia's Peter
Gilmour, one of the favorites. The America's Cup
veteran's strongest rivals appear to be two-time
winner Gavin Brady, 2003 world match racing champion
Ed Baird of St. Petersburg, Fla. and '92 winner
Terry Hutchinson, who called tactics for last
year's winner, Ken Read, who is not competing.
Brady,
a New Zealander living in Annapolis, Md., is already
designated as helmsman for Oracle BMW's next America's
Cup challenge. He is counting this not only as
"a tune-up for the new sailing season"
with his new team but a training step toward Valencia
in 2007 because of the weapons of choice: the
sturdy Catalina 37s introduced in 1990.
"With
these boats, for an America's Cup team this is
the best event to do," Brady said. "The
boats are 37 feet but perform more like 45-footers.
If you make a mistake you pay for it for the next
few minutes, like you do in the America's Cup."
Others
in the lineup are Scott Dickson, who qualified
for the eighth time by winning the Ficker Cup;
Allan Coutts, Kelvin Harrap and Cameron Appleton
of New Zealand; Jes Gram-Hansen, Denmark, and
Mattias Rahm, Sweden.
They'll
sail a double round-robin of 18 races each to
sort out a final four for the weekend's best-of-three
semifinals leading to the best-of-three finals.
A short windward-leeward course will be set in
smooth water close to Belmont Pier, well inside
the breakwater. Each race will be twice around.
Racing
will start at noon daily, conditions permitting.
There is $25,000 in prize money, with $6,000 to
the winning team.
Live
radio commentary of the racing may be heard worldwide
on www.KLBC.org
or at 810 AM within a four-mile radius of the
Belmont Pier spectator site. Video highlights
of each day's racing may be replayed each evening
on the club's Web site, www.LBYC.org.
Sportshow
TV is producing a half-hour highlight video to
be aired later by the Outdoor Life Network.
The
2002-03 Swedish Match Tour is restarting after
a five-month winter hiatus. Gilmour, 44 and skipper
of Team Pizza-La, has won two of the first three
events in Japan and Bermuda and was third in the
Danish Open.
At
28, he was the Congressional Cup champion in 1988
a year after gaining international prominence
as the aggressive tactician and starting helmsman---remember
"Crash" Gilmour?---for Iain Murray on
Kookaburra III in the '86-87 America's Cup at
Fremantle. Later he won three match racing world
championships in 1990, ’97 and ’98.
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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.
Photo © Rich Roberts
|
Brady,
30, was only 22 when he scored the first of his
two Congressional Cup wins back to back in '96
and '97, but that was before the birth of the
Swedish Match Tour. His best efforts on the SMT
have been six second places---including the last
two Congressional Cups---although at times he
has seemed unstoppable.
Last
year he set an event record by winning his first
14 races before finishing the round robin with
16 wins and 2 losses, well ahead of the fleet,
but he lost to Read in the finals, 2-1.
This
time Brady is sailing with other personnel from
the restructured Oracle BMW team led by Chris
Dickson, including John Kostecki of San Francisco,
skipper of the victorious illbruck entry in the
2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race. Others crew members
are Brad Webb, Craig Monk and Ross Halcrow of
New Zealand and Mark Bradford of Australia---each
a world-class professional.
Each
crew must meet the maximum weight limit of 1,155
pounds. A couple of teams had to strip down to
shorts to make it.
Steve
Flam, a local veteran sailing as tactician for
Gram-Hansen, was last to hit the scales and was
told by weighmaster Molly McCloud that there was
room for only 178 3/4 pounds more. Flam, without
his shirt and pants, weighed 178 3/4 pounds.
Sportshow
TV is producing a half-hour highlight video to
be aired later by the Outdoor Life Network.
MORE
INFORMATION:
Long Beach Yacht Club
(562) 598-9401
www.lbyc.org
Rich
Roberts
Press Officer
(310) 835-2526
richsail@earthlink.net
SWEDISH
MATCH TOUR
www.swedishmatchtour.com
