Alinghi's Baird and Schuemann advance to St. Moritz Match Race semifinals

[Source: World Match Racing Tour] Three of four quarterfinal matches were completed this afternoon at the 4th annual St. Moritz Match Race, Stage 3 of the 2006-’07 World Match Racing Tour.

Reigning champion Ed Baird, past champion Mark Mendelblatt and three-time Olympic gold medalist Jochen Schuemann advanced to the penultimate round in the battle for the title “King of the Mountain” after winning their matches.

Baird defeated Ian Ainslie 2-1, Mendelblatt downed Eric Monnin 2-0 and Schuemann, sailing with perhaps the oldest crew, ousted the hottest skipper in the event, Sébastian Col, 2-0.

One quarterfinal match remains to be completed tomorrow morning, between Peter Holmberg, winner of Group B round robin, and Paolo Cian, winner of the Repechage Round.

Tomorrow’s racing will be broadcast live on the Internet at www.sporttv.ch.

While Baird, Mendelblatt, Monnin, Schuemann, Col and Holmberg advanced to the quarterfinals from the preliminary round robins, Cian and Ainslie advanced after this morning’s Repechage Round. Cian won the five-flight round with a 4-1 record and Ainslie was second at 3-2.

Cian’s win came at a price. Crewman Nello Pavoni, the headsail trimmer, wrenched his right knee coming off the trapeze during the first flight. He received medical treatment and a wrap in between races and sailed the rest of the round. Afterwards he was taken to the local hospital and the knee was wrapped for support.

“He may have damaged cartilage or torn a ligament,” said Cian. “We’re going to try tomorrow. I think we’ve gotten better so hopefully he can sail tomorrow.”

This regatta on a lake surrounded by tall mountains and sailed in physical demanding boats is taking its toll. Sailors regularly talk of their lungs burning because of the altitude. Pavoni was one of a half dozen crewmen limping around this afternoon. Sore joints aren’t the only malady.

Mike Drummond, tactician for Baird, is suffering a case of food poisoning. He went out for the first flight of the quarterfinals against Ainslie, but couldn’t complete the race and Baird had to withdraw.

“We assume it’s food poisoning, but don’t know,” said Baird. “We were all out at dinner last night and a number of the women and (crewman) Nils (Frei) and I felt a bit off today. Mike’s a tough guy.”

Baird used Holmberg’s crewman Yves Detrey for the next two races and won the match. He was able to complete a penalty turn in Flight 2 to even the series, and then got a penalty on Ainslie in the third race.

“We try to think race when it’s race time,” said Baird. “I’m sad for Mike to not to be able to do what he loves to do.”

Mendelblatt had a closer series with Monnin than the 2-0 score indicates. “He kept coming into us downwind,” said Mendelblatt, who won the first two championships in St. Moritz. “The only time he didn’t gain on us was when he jibe set and we did a bear away. [On the last run] we waited until he was overlapped and then luffed. At the rate he was going he was going to roll us.”

Monnin’s crew is considerably lighter than Mendelblatt’s, which helped his downwind speed, but Mendelblatt got a nice advantage in both pre-starts. Monnin was over early in the first start and late to the line in the second.

Monnin, sailing with brothers Jean-Claude and Marc, didn’t feel the crew weight was a disadvantage. He felt his brothers were more nimble than other crews.

“I’m happy with what we did around the course, our maneuvers were quite good,” he said. “If we could have the same maneuvers and maximum crew weight, that would be best. We had a problem with the starts. I don’t know what would’ve happened if we’d done the starts correctly.”

Schuemann downed Col 2-0. Col entered St. Moritz having won back-to-back Grade 1 regattas, but couldn’t pull off the triple. He was penalized twice in the pre-start of the first race and then couldn’t overcome Schuemann’s tactics in the second.

“It was shifty as usual,” said Peter Evans, tactician for Schuemann. “The two penalties in the first race helped us because it was so shifty and we didn’t extend. In the second start we wanted the left. The wind was shifted right and we thought it would go back left, which it did.” Evans noted that Schuemann, Claudio Celon and he are the oldest crew competing at the highest-elevated regatta on the World Tour. “We have 142 years on the boat,” said Evans. “We deserve some prize for that.” Perhaps a case of pain killers would be appropriate.