By Sean McNeill
When it comes to results, would you prefer to crew and win? Or lead and place second?

Would you prefer to win the Swedish Match Tour championship, including the $60,000 bonus and BMW 5 Series Touring valued at $85,000, as a crew for the greatest America’s Cup skipper of all-time?

Or would you prefer to do it your way, sailing with childhood friends and making your own decisions, right or wrong, and winning a $40,000 bonus?

Denmark’s Jes Gram-Hansen and his fellow Vikings Michael Arnhild, Christian Kamp and Rasmus Kostner might have the opportunity to do both. For the first time in the five-year history of the Swedish Match Tour one group of sailors (Gram-Hansen Racing) is in position to win the championship AND place second, as both a team and crew.

The four Danes spent last summer crewing for Russell Coutts, the record-setting America’s Cup skipper from New Zealand. But Arnhild, Kamp and Kostner have raced with skipper Gram-Hansen for the past three to four years, and they’ve performed well.

Gram-Hansen finished third in the Swedish Match Tour championship in 2001-’02 and 2002-’03. He led the ’02-’03 circuit after the first four events, and has recorded more top-eight finishes, 26, than any other skipper on Tour.

True success, however, remained fleeting. Besides the prize money, match-racers often equate their level of recognition on the Tour with the amount of invitations they receive to the events. Despite three years of good results, the Gram-Hansen Racing team still wasn’t a regular invitee to match-race regattas.

“The Tour is hard because it takes a lot of time and you travel a lot,” said Gram-Hansen, 33, of Aarhus, Denmark. “We can afford to buy the flight tickets and be on the Tour, but we can’t pay ourselves an income. We all have to work when we’re not racing. Christian, Rasmus and Michael all have their studies. I work when I’m home. We are dependent on winning prize money at every event we go to, and that’s tough because it’s never guaranteed. We’re in a situation where the America’s Cup teams get the invites first, and sometimes we don’t get them.”

Unbeknownst to them, their luck began to change during the match-racing worlds at Lake Garda, Italy, in July 2003. They practiced for two hours prior to the regatta with Coutts, who was sailing with his usual Team Alinghi crewmembers. “Neither of us fared particularly well [in the regatta], but I was impressed with their positioning,” Coutts, 42, recalled.

Fast forward to May 2004 and Elba Island, where Gram-Hansen and mates crewed for Poland’s Karol Jablonski at the Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman. They were forced to crew when Gram-Hansen couldn’t get an invite to the event. Coutts won with his Alinghi mates, rallying all the way from last place after Day 3. A simple conversation between Coutts and Gram-Hansen about practicing more together led to a phone call a month and a half later when Coutts needed a new crew after parting ways with Alinghi.

“When Russell asked us to go with him that was a great opportunity,” said Gram-Hansen. “He gets the invites. And he has a very good name, regarding sponsorship and stuff like that. We thought we could learn something, have a lot of fun and get out there and race. So that was good for us.”

The results have been phenomenal. Since joining forces on the Swedish Match Tour, the Coutts Racing Team has posted a 38-9 record (80.8 winning percentage) and won $97,000 in prize money. They’ve made the final round of three Tour events, and won in Sweden and Bermuda.

Gram-Hansen Racing remains a formidable force in its own right. They competed in five events in 2004, winning in Denmark and placing second in Japan. They’ve posted a 54-30 record (64.2 percent) and won more than $27,000 in prize money.

“Everyone was looking at us to see if we could pull off a good performance at the Danish Open, and that put a bit of pressure on us,” said Kamp, 26, the headsail trimmer. “But we’ve had such a good time through the summer. We had a lot of confidence because we showed at the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand that we are good enough. If anyone had any doubts, they shouldn’t.”

Note: This article is an edited version of the story Russell and the Danes found in Issue 12 of the Tour Newsletter.

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