Team Shosholoza skipper Geoff Meek and crack SA America’s Cup crew members Alex Runciman, Guido Verhovert and Marc Lagesse fly to Tokyo, Japan, at the weekend for the next leg of the Swedish Match Tour, the world’s leading professional sailing series.

Participation in the event is by invitation only to America’s Cup skippers and it is only since South Africa entered her maiden bid for the 32nd America’s Cup in 2007 earlier this year that Meek has been included in the high profile line up. The team raced in the Portuguese
leg of the Tour in July. The Tokyo event, known as the Nippon Cup, will be held from Tuesday 16 - 21 November on the picturesque Sagami Bay which opens to the Pacific Ocean.

Meek will be one of 12 top skippers competing in Japan on identical Yamaha 30 yachts, a Japanese designed cruiser/racer, in the single round robin event in which the top four advance to the semifinals and the winners to the final. At stake is a prize purse of 6 million Yen (about $56,400) and the Nippon Cup. “We are still on a steep learning curve with match racing and this is why we are anxious to be invited to the Swedish Match Tour events. Match racing is the format of the America’s Cup and it is critical for our training in the run up to 2007 that we are exposed to it as much as possible,” said Meek. “We are also rotating our crew from Team Shosholoza each time we compete in a Tour event so ultimately most of the team will benefit,” he said.

Team Shosholoza returned to South Africa two weeks ago after finishing seventh overall (out of eight teams) in the first three America’s Cup precursor regattas held in Marseille in France, and Valencia, Spain. In a news release issued today, Sean McNeill, the director of public relations for the Swedish Match Tour, said the USA’s Ed Baird, a three times world match racing champion, looked set to regain the Swedish Match Tour 2004/5 championship lead from current leader Russell Coutts, who won’t be racing at the “Pizza-la Red Lobster” Nippon Cup.

Baird is one of five outstanding match-racers who will be competing in Japan. The others are Dean Barker (NZL, helmsman Emirates Team New Zealand), Gavin Brady (NZL, helmsman of USA’s BMW Oracle Racing), Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN, a regular crew of three times America’s Cup winning skipper Russell Coutts) and Peter Gilmour (AUS, world match racing champion and winner of 8 Nippon Cups).

Baird (2nd), Gilmour (3rd) and Gram-Hansen (5th) are ranked among the top five skippers on the Swedish Match Tour leaderboard. Coutts is leading. Sven-Erik Horsch (GER, new to the match racing circuit), Michele Ivaldi (ITA, Luna Rossa and Prada Challenges), Philippe Presti (FRA, helmsman of the French le Defi Challenge), Geoff Meek (RSA, skipper/helmsman Team Shosholoza) and three of Japan’s best skippers, Yasutaka Funazawa, Takumi Nakamura and Kazuto Seki, make up the rest of the field.

It is the 15th anniversary of the regatta which will be hosted at the Hayama Marina in the Kanagawa Prefecture, about 60 kilometers south of Tokyo. Favoured by the Japanese as a summer resort, Hayama has a population of about 30,000 but at this time of the year temperatures will be around 5 - 15 degrees and cold for the South Africans. The famous snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji, the highest peak in Japan at 3,776 meters, is easily seen from Hayama on clear days. The Nippon Cup marks the halfway point of the 2004/2005 Swedish Match Tour season, and puts a close to 2004.

For more information visit www.swedishmatchtour.com

Swedish Match Tour standings
(After 3 of 8 stages)
1. Russell Coutts (NZL) Coutts Racing – 45 points
2. Ed Baird (USA) Team Musto – 40 points
3. Peter Gilmour (AUS) Pizza-La Sailing Team – 30 points
4. Staffan Lindberg (FIN) – 26 points
5. Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN) Gram-Hansen Racing 25 points
6. Mathieu Richard (FRA) – 21 points
7. Kelvin Harrap (NZL) Team New Zealand – 20 points
T. James Spithill (AUS) Luna Rossa Challenge – 20 points

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