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| GOLDEN MEMORIES |
 Peter Gilmour (AUS)
Peter Gilmour holds a number of Tour records. He is the only skipper to have won the championship twice 2003-’04 and 2004-’05. He is the career leader in victories (8) and scored the most championship points in a season when he won the 2003-’04 championship.
“The Tour has been tremendous for me and my team through the years and I have a number of great memories, but two stand out in my mind. The first was winning the second championship. We were so far behind Ed (Baird) at Christmas and to claw our way back was a tremendous team effort. We were never really sure we could do it, but we kept at it and then Ed started slipping. First in Elba then Germany, by then we had his attention and he entered Croatia. We just kept chipping away and could tell he was feeling the pressure. It was so satisfying in Sweden when we beat him in the quarterfinals, but at that point we felt we it was a foregone conclusion.
“Another memory was the Australia Cup in 2001. We had just recently started the OneWorld campaign about six months before and went on to win every race in the Australia Cup. We were going gangbusters, it was a great feeling. After the event I got summoned back to the U.S. for a management meeting and was told we were out of money with the campaign. That was devastating. We went from a big high to a big low. However, the team rallied from that point and achieved a pretty good result considering everything.”
Peter Holmberg (ISV) 
In my last campaign for the 2002 America’s Cup, we decided to participate heavily on the Swedish Match Tour as a solid means of preparing for the Cup. I took along my tactician, trimmers, and bow man and it made a huge improvement to our communication, strategy, rules knowledge, and maneuvers. We brought all this knowledge and intensity back to our bigger team and introduced a level of match-racing that you would not have dared to try in house on our own. This was a huge success and helped us tremendously to be match race ready for the start of the Louis Voitton Challenger Series.
We also won the Swedish Match Tour that year (2001-’02), which was a wonderful bonus. Unfortunately, though, I was never able to win the final event of the year in Sweden. All that I can claim is to be the Swedish Match Cup swimming champion after being knocked overboard by opponents in not just last July’s event, but also the year before, in nearly identical situations. The first time was by Russell Coutts and this year by Philippe Presti, both times hitting the back of my boat at pace and literally knocking it out from under me. Hopefully one of these days I'll win the sailing portion of the event there in Sweden!
 Christian Kamp (DEN)
Christian has competed in nearly 30 Tour events as a headsail trimmer, with compatriot Jes Gram-Hansen and now Russell Coutts. Sailing with Gram-Hansen they finished third in the Tour championship twice (2001-’02, ’02-’03), fourth (’04-’05) and eighth (’03-’04). Sailing with Coutts they placed third (’04-’05).
“There are a couple of great memories. The first was winning the Danish Open in 2002 (with Gram-Hansen), that’s gotta be one of the most memorable. Winning in front of our home crowd was a great experience. Second was winning the Swedish Match Cup (with Coutts) last year. Winning events is always great, but at venues where there are lots of spectators is fantastic. We also won the Danish Open last year in front of 10,000 people, it was awesome. Sweden is great because there are so many people and it’s the summer time.
“The defining moment for us was coming second in Steinlager Cup in New Zealand in 2002 (with Gram-Hansen). We all borrowed money from our parents to get there. We didn’t have any money at all. We knew if we were going to do any events that year we needed a good result. We finished second, and that financed the next event, the Congressional Cup. The prize money started financing our season and we had a pretty good year. That was really important.
“Since then we came close to pulling the plug a few times, last year as well. We sat down almost two years ago now. We needed money because we were all studying and we couldn’t finance it ourselves. We agreed to give it a shot until the Swedish Match Cup in 2004. In May last year we were contacted by Russell and things started to work out. We’ve won a few events since then, got into some big boat sailing and got into the America’s Cup, all thanks to Russell. From being close to pulling the plug on the team and the match-racing circuit to making a living sailing is a fantastic thing.”
John Standley (AUS) 
By his own estimation John has attended around 20 events, nine or 10 of them as chief umpire.
“The Tour initially gave me an opportunity to break into umpiring away from Australia and New Zealand, and has taken me to events all around the world. Before Tour started I hadn’t umpired outside of Australia and New Zealand. It’s had quite an impact on my life, one way or another.
“My memories are largely of the people I’ve met on the Tour. From the first Tour meeting with Scott MacLeod and Jill Royster, and going through the other Tour managers, Greer Osgood and Melissa Duhaime. But one person who stands out to me is Rudi Magg (the Principal Race Officer at Match Race Germany). When you first meet Rudi he’s a very imposing and almost frightening figure. He runs the event with an iron first and everything runs to time, but he’s one of the easiest race officers to work with and he has an uncanny ability to run a successful event with very little wind. It’s a very rewarding experience to work with him.
“The German event stands out as one of my favorites, but all of the events are memorable. This inaugural Monsoon Cup has been an incredible experience and the hospitality has been awesome. Four other umpires and myself were treated to a police escort, going the wrong way up a one way street to get to a restaurant. But there are many other happy memories and good times that we’ve had on the Tour.
“I’d also like to comment on the impact the Tour has had on umpiring. The Tour started off by appointing a group of 10 umpires, and this has evolved into a more professional structure. By having a more consistent group of umpires at the Grade 1 events, which include all of the Tour events, we’ve been able to improve our overall standard quite considerably over the past five years. New techniques have been developed for working with the media and television, and I believe this has had a positive impact on the sport and umpiring.”
 Ed Baird (USA)
Ed is the only skipper to have finished in the Championship 8 each Tour season. He has four career victories on the Swedish Match Tour.
“Along with being the only consistent place for the top pro teams to race on a regular basis, the Swedish Match Tour has spawned some great relationships. Teams, umpires and sponsors have all worked hard to make every year better. But there is one situation that reminded me that the right sponsor makes a difference on, and off, the water.
“The first Swedish Match Cup prizegiving was in one of the castles in Marstrand. It was packed, with very tight seating. A band walked around the room playing requests, and when they got to our table they played a very energetic song. Two of my team jumped up to dance on the table, which lasted about 10 seconds before collapsing. The room went silent as my crew slowly extracted themselves from the broken glasses of red wine, our glass trophies and the bowls of red berry sauce that had been part of desert. Everything was red, but it appeared that they were OK.
“Immediately behind me was seated the president of Swedish Match. I was sure the next thing I would hear would be his voice excusing us from the festivities. Instead, he looked over the situation, raised his arms in the air and bellowed, “Yeaaahhh!” It was then I knew the Tour had the right sponsor. Not only did they provide great racing all week, but now he had everyone cheering at the prizegiving when he could have easily been angry instead! The band started up again, the table was immediately replaced and my team has been part of every Tour year since."
Magnus Holmberg (SWE) 
Magnus was the second champion of the Swedish Match Tour, winning the 2000-2001 championship. He was the first to record five victories on the Tour and has six career victories.
“When we won the Tour in Marstrand was quite memorable. We’d been sailing match-racing events for a long time, and to be able to win the Tour that year and do it, even though we didn’t win the SMC, but being the Tour winner in Marstrand was certainly very nice. That’s one of the bigger achievements for the team. That’s where the YC I’ve represented all my life has its activities during summer, so it’s like sailing at home. I have a good memory from that event.
“For me and my team the Tour has been great. The development of match-racing with the Tour has been great. It’s given all the events a lot more media exposure. And I think the fact the events have become more unified with a marketing drive and PR drive in the same direction; the continuity of those activities is beneficial for all of us. The individual events have become better, but also for the image of the sport it’s really good having one body driving the Tour in the way it’s been done the last couple of years. I think that’s really valuable for the sport.”
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Newsletter - November 2008
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