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| THE PRIDE OF FINLAND |
Finnish skipper Staffan Lindberg at the Monsoon Cup Quarterfinal Round press conference on Dec. 3, 2005. (World Match Racing Tour/Guido Cantini/Sea&See)
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Staffan Lindberg and crew have Mathieu Richard tucked astern in Flight 3. (©Swedish Match Tour/Guido Cantini)
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Staffan Lindberg`s Alandia Sailing Team competes in the Petite Final of the Monsoon Cup, the Tour`s 50th anniversary event. (World Match Racing Tour/Guido Cantini/Sea&See)
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The Alandia Sailing Team -- Staffan Lindberg, Carl-Johan Uckelstam and Robert Skarp -- placed third at St. Moritz Match Race. (World Match Racing Tour/Guido Cantini/Sea&See)
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By SEAN McNEILL
Staffan Lindberg is living proof that successful skippers on the World Tour aren’t necessarily grown in America’s Cup syndicates.
The 34-year-old Finn is currently placed second in the chase for the World Championship, trailing leader and two-time champion Peter Gilmour by 11 points. Lindberg placed sixth overall last season, the first time he has finished a season in the Champoinship 8. But he has never enjoyed such a high ranking as now in four years on the tour.
Lindberg achieved his standing by finishing 3-4-5 in three of the first four stages. He placed third at St. Moritz Match Race, fourth at the Monsoon Cup and fifth at the Portugal Match Cup, easily his best string of regattas on the tour.
The finishes have netted him about $28,000 in prize money, but he credits his success partly to having landed a sponsor last summer, which helped alleviate pressure at the events and made for easier nights sleeping.
“In the past we would work hard and get to a certain stage in a regatta and then fade,” says Lindberg. “We knew we had won enough prize money to cover our expenses and might’ve eased up a bit.”
In stepped Alandia, the Finnish marine insurance company. Lindberg is friends with one of the persons in charge of the company, and his team is now called the Alandia Sailing Team.
“I come from an island with 20,000 people, everyone knows everyone,” Lindberg says. “I’ve been trying to get them to sponsor me for a while. They’ve had other projects going on, but when they had an opportunity they contacted me.”
Swedish Speaking Finn
Lindberg lives in Mariehamn, Finland, located on the Ĺland Islands between Finland and Sweden, with his wife, Anna, and 16-month-old son, Nicolas. Although the islands are sovereign to Finland many residents of Mariehamn speak Swedish, which is partly why his main crewmembers – Nils Bjerkĺs, Robert Skarp, Carl-Johan Uckelstam and Daniel Wallberg – are Swedish.
“Finnish is the third language spoken,” Lindberg says, “behind Swedish and English.”
Lindberg says he’s a part-time student and also operates a book distribution company with some friends. “We started off selling paperbacks in convenience stores. We’d bring the shelves in and stock them,” he says. “Now we’re looking to broaden our horizons.”
Lindberg’s father passed his love of sailing on to his son and bought him an Optimist dinghy when he was 10 years old. From Optimists Lindberg moved into the Europe and Laser, singlehanded dinghies that suited the lanky, 6-foot-4 skipper. From the singlehanded classes he graduated to the H-Boat, a 26-foot, three-person keelboat that’s widely popular in Finland. The National Championship would attract up to 90 boats.
“That’s how I got into match-racing,” Lindberg says. “The H-Boat was used for match-racing events in Finland.”
Match-racing isn’t Lindberg’s sole focus. He also crews on the maxi boat Bols and estimates he’s logged about 10,000 miles. Although he believes in cross-training, competing in fleet and match-racing, it’s the complexity of match-racing that rivets his attention.
“I try to do some fleet racing between match-racing regattas and it always feels like I’m forgetting something because I don’t have to worry about the other boats in the same way I do in match-racing,” says Lindberg. “Fleet racing is a more simple game, you sail the racecourse more than your opponent. When I’m out there I wonder what I’m forgetting.”
Time to Trim
Flush with sponsorship, Lindberg has a full match-racing schedule planned for the year. Two months ago he competed in the Auckland Match Racing Cup in New Zealand, where he placed 9th in the competitive field of 10. Lindberg was disappointed with his performance.
“I think whatever could go wrong piled up,” Lindberg says. “My starting was off and we struggled to get the MRX going in the early rounds. However, we were quite happy the last two days when we felt we were back to our normal standard. Let’s hope all the bad things came in that regatta and we only have smooth regattas to come. We would go back to New Zealand anytime though.”
In Auckland they raced the Farr MRX, a 34-foot displacement boat. The tour’s specially designed match-racer, the SM40, is a displacement boat as are nearly all of the boats on the tour, save for St. Moritz Match Race which features a planing keelboat. Lindberg sees room for displacement and planing designs in match-racing.
“You have the displacement boats which are very tactical and force you to think ahead,” says Lindberg. “On the other hand, I think for the best of the sport we need something that is spectacular and planes, especially at light-air venues. St. Moritz is pretty different with guys in trapezes and so on. A larger version of something like that might be interesting.”
Later this year he’ll attempt to qualify for the ISAF-organized Nations Cup representing Finland, for which he’ll use a Finnish crew. And he plans to enter as many World Tour events as possible, but that is when his lack of America’s Cup pedigree becomes a hindrance.
“I think the tour needs to think about the invitation process for events,” Lindberg says. “It should not be the organizers who decide who will win the championship. We are placed 2nd on the tour but we can’t be certain to get invites to the remainder of regattas. Although the America’s Cup guys are important for media, it is also important to get new guys into the sport and I think having a clear invitation process would help there.”
Lindberg arrives in Brazil after four days of practice last weekend with Magnus Holmberg’s Victory Challenge crew in Valencia, Spain. Holmberg, a six-time winner on the tour, is also entered in Brazil, and Victory recently purchased two SM40s for training purposes.
The practice was a welcome respite from the harsh winter Finland has endured this year, but Lindberg discovered another problem he’ll have to address.
“Practice was good, but I had to force my shorts on,” he says.
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RELATED CONTENT
Staffan Lindberg bio
Brazil Sailing Cup Summary
Brazil Sailing Cup to Launch World Tour (Jan. 27, 2006)
2005-'06 World Tour Standings
2004-'05 Final Season Standings
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Newsletter - September 2008
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