It used to be that the match racing circuit comprised a loosely configurated series of localised races that relied heavily on the securing of sponsors.

Today the tour is an entity unto itself, a self supporting arm of Swedish Match designed to ensure continuity while offering an outlet for the world's best sailors to show off their skills, as well as giving fans the opportunity to view match racing at its best.

"All of the events are old, but they have never been combined into one tool before and that is a big change,'' said Swedish Match President and Chief Executive Officer Goran Linden during a lunch-time interview yesterday.

"That is important from a sailing point of view, because it is much more attractive for the skippers and teams to participate now, when they know it's not only the question of it being a local competition.

"Each event has points for the total tour and they can see that if they go to all the events they can win the total tour.'' Indeed, the combining of the tour into a corporate business means that it can still attract individual sponsors for the individual events without being totally reliant on such.

"The concept with this being a company is, of course, itself an answer on the long term commitment,'' continued Linden, a long-time club sailor. "In addition to that you can say that the sponsorship, which is not the role of Swedish Match, allows a lot of other companies to get involved. Here you have Colorcraft, so it's a lot more spread out over many different sponsors than normally, where you might have one or maybe five.

"What we can do, long term, is find sponsors on a more international level, companies that are interested to participate, not only in Bermuda, but New Zealand, Australia, and so on. That will also create better stability from a financial point of view for all the events.

"So they are not dependent any more, hopefully, on one or a few local sponsors.'' While the America's Cup has long been the illuminating source for bringing match racing, and the sport of sailing, to the forefront, it is the tour, and its ability to place the world's best on show on a more frequent basis, that will keep it there.

The concept of pitting two boats and two skippers racing against each other in `matches' has literally brought sailing to the masses in a way that fleet racing never could.

Being able to have racing over short course in inlets such as Hamilton Harbour, where anyone can witness the goings on, has served to involve more than the sailing crowd, allowing those with only a casual interest to see first hand sailing at the top level.

"I am an old sailor myself and I never before thought that sailing had the possibility to be a sport that would attract spectators,'' added Lindren.

"But when I found this match racing, the concept, and experienced it in Sweden -- in Marstrand -- and saw how many people came, I thought it was definitely possible to do much more with it than had been done in the past.

"So, I think for sailing to survive as a theatre thing, not only a flash, match racing is the platform.

"The match racing, with the format it has, is not expensive for the sailor, because they don't have to have their own boats and they can start match racing in all the small yacht clubs no matter where they are, if they have two boats.

"It's a way to broaden the sport, instituting match racing within sailing.

Compare that to the Whitbread and things like that, which require huge funding, here it's not necessary.'' Swedish Match first started their sponsorship with the now Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand, and continued their involvement by entering a yacht in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht race.

Yet this did not sufficiently satisfy the pallet in terms of the company being able to properly fete its clients.

Then, up popped the match racing tour, which Lindren, who took over as the head man in 1996, identified as fertile ground for the further promotion of the company.

"When I became president and CEO of Swedish Match in '96 I found a need for a platform where I could invite important customers from all over the world to give them better feeling for the company and so on, and I found that the platform of that event would be very good,'' explained Lindren. "So, for some years we improved that.

"I decided to go in the Whitbread with one boat -- Swedish Match -- and that was a platform for me, internally and externally, to introduce the new concept with the company and the group.

"And then we found later on, some one and a half years ago, that we needed something, not at the same size as the participation in the Whitbread Race, but a more stable, long-term platform ... there we found a need for a tool.

Match made in heaven From Page 17 "This is not a traditional sponsorship. We formed a company that is the owner of the tour, so we are much more than a traditional sponsor.'' At present the tour stands at eight events, taking in New Zealand (Steinlager/Line 7b Cup), Australia (Sun Microsystems Australia Cup), Croatia (ACI Cup/ISAF Match Racing Worlds), Germany (Match Race Lake Constance), Sweden (Swedish Match Cup), Italy (Trofeo Challenge Roberto Trombini Match Race), Denmark (Copenhagen Danish Cup Open) and Bermuda.

Linden expressed a desire to expand to 12 events, but only if the quality could be ensured.

"I think, long term. I would prefer to see, maybe, 12 events a year. But it's important to have a good quality, which is more important than to increase the number of events.'' Perfect Match: Goran Lindren of Swedish Match, sponsors of the Swedish Match Grand Prix Sailing tour, which includes the Colorcraft Gold Cup in Bermuda.