Ed Baird follows behind Terry Hutchinson but managed to come from behind and take the lead on a jibe set at the weather mark and a win of the 40^th Congressional Cup off Long Beach, California.

Photo : Bob Grieser/Outside Images

Baird, the American skipper of Team Musto, defeated fellow American Terry Hutchinson and his Team Annapolis Volvo crew by 1:41 to win the Congressional Cup, the symbolic Crimson Blazer and $6,000 of the $25,000 prize purse.

“It’s an honor to have my name put on this trophy with so many great names already on it,” said Baird. “Whenever you can win an event of the Swedish Match Tour it’s fantastic.”

Baird’s (St. Petersburg, FL) crew included tactician Andy Horton (Newport, RI), mainsail trimmer Eric Doyle (San Diego, CA), trimmers Jon Ziskind (Newport, RI) and Brett Jones (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), and bowman Rob Myles (Jamestown, RI).

Australian Peter Gilmour, skipper of the Pizza-La Sailing Team, remains the overall leader of the Tour’s Championship Leaderboard with 77 points. He seemed destined to win his second Congressional Cup title after winning the double round robin with a 16-2 record Record #sailingrecord , but fell afoul of an umpire’s decision in the semifinals that halted his run.

“We sailed well all week,” Gilmour said, “but Ed’s victory is well deserved.”

Another potential winner, Gavin Brady and the Oracle BMW Racing team, also couldn’t advance past the semifinals. Tied 1-1 with Baird, they led down the first run of their third and deciding match.

But Baird was able to get past them just before the leeward mark and round in the lead. Brady then was penalized for an incident coming out of the mark which killed any hopes he had of moving to the finals.

“We didn’t sail well on the light-air runs today,” Brady said. “We haven’t done that too much as a team. It’s a weakness we’ll have to address.”

Brady, however, did improve his standing on the Tour’s Championship Leaderboard. Placed seventh overall coming into the event, his third place finish added 15 points to his total of 30 and moved him up to fourth overall.

Baird and crew proved to be resilient on the final day of the event hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club. They came from behind three times today to win matches that they trailed. But he also readily admitted to being lucky.

“My starts were particularly poor today,” Baird said. “We just had to wait for our opportunity.”

That opportunity presented itself on the final leg of the 98 races conducted in the event. Until that point, Hutchinson had been dominating Baird.

Hutchinson had the better of the start in the light 6- to 8-knot winds. He was on starboard at the pin end while Baird was on port near the boat end. Both crews took some time to get their Catalina 37s moving in the light winds, but Hutchinson got up to speed Speed #speedsailing more quickly.

They met about 90 seconds into the match, with Hutchinson on port and Baird on starboard. Hutchinson was able to tack back to starboard in front of Baird and bounced him off to the right side of the course, where there was very little wind pressure.

“We just couldn’t tack out of there,” said Horton. “We would’ve been a lot farther behind if we had tacked.”

Hutchinson led Baird by 53 seconds at the first windward mark. On the first downwind leg the wind shifted 50 degrees to the right and skewed the run to a reach. It also skewed the second beat to a fetch.

That negated some of Hutchinson’s advantage as the race became a parade, but he still led by 34 seconds around the final windward mark.

Hutchinson’s crew did a bear away set onto port jibe, sailing toward the left corner of the run, the same corner that gobbled up Baird on the first leg.

Trailing with the leg to the finish ahead, Baird’s Team Musto crew jibed to starboard after rounding the windward mark. About one minute later he was powering toward the finish in a new breeze while Hutchinson was glued to the water in the left corner.

Baird gained more than two minutes on Hutchinson on that one leg, no more than one half-mile long.

“I feel bad for Terry and the guys,” Baird said, “but it’s their choice at the windward mark. They could’ve gone either way and we would have had to choose which way to go. That’s why we finish match races downwind. You let the leader hang it out and sometimes it works for the trailing boat.”

Hutchinson was defiant in defeat. While he congratulated Baird for the victory, he felt the race was unfair due to the skewed course that wasn’t altered by the race committee.

He wanted the race thrown out and considered a protest, but a review by the international jury found no grounds for a hearing.

“I feel like we did a great job all week,” Hutchinson said. “Everyone I talked to said we sailed great.”

After dominating the event all week, Gilmour finished fourth. Hutchinson beat him 2-1 in the semifinals. Gilmour then lost to Brady by 1:15 in the one race petit final to finish fourth while Brady claimed third.

Gilmour, however, still holds the overall lead on the Swedish Match Tour Championship Leaderboard. By finishing fourth he adds 12 points to his total and now has 77 points after four events.

He’s 32 points ahead of second-placed Magnus Holmberg (SWE), who didn’t compete at the Congressional Cup. But it could’ve been a much bigger lead had he won.

“Well, we wanted to keep the others in the hunt,” Gilmour quipped. “The Swedish Match Tour brings out the purity of sport. This event was open right until the end. That’s the exciting thing about sport.”

The next event on the Swedish Match Tour is the Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman, scheduled May 3-9 in Porto Azzurro, Elba, Italy.