Sally Barkow and Magenta Project won the penultimate round of the inaugural M32 Bermuda Winter Series in the Great Sound at the weekend.

The Olympic sailor and two-times US Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and her colleagues pipped World Match Racing Tour champions GAC Pindar, led by six-times world champion and past King Edward VII Gold Cup winner Ian Williams, for the title by three-points.

It is the second straight time that GAC Pindar have finished runners-up in the series.

Don Wilson’s Convexity rounded off the podium followed by Håkan Svensson’s Valhalla in fourth, Charlie Enright’s 11th Hour Racing in fifth and Deneen Demourkas’s Groovederci, which brought up the rear among the six-boat racing fleet.

Barkow, who is among the ten World Match Racing Tour Card holders, and her colleagues got off to a flying start after winning four of the seven races sailed on Saturday to top the leaderboard by a two-point margin over GAC Pindar on the first day.

The American team then picked up where they left off the day before yesterday, reeling off another four victories en route to the title.

Barkow is the first female Tour Card skipper ever to lead an all-female team competing on the World Match Racing Tour.

She made her first appearance on the racing circuit at the 2005 Monsoon Cup — the 50th event on the World Match Racing Tour — in 2005, competing against the likes of Sir Russell Coutts, Dean Barker, Chris Dickson and Peter Gilmour.

The M32 Series was formed to create a professional sailing series on a regional level with the aim of staging fun, exciting and challenging arena style racing that is attractive to the best sailors and their sponsors.

Sailed by a crew of four to five, the one-design M32 catamaran is designed for racing and is capable of beating 40-footers.

The boat’s asymmetrical foils create the perfect amount of lift and stability to enable the hulls skim the surface, thus reducing drag and increasing speed.

The fourth and final round of the M32 Bermuda Winter Series will be held April from 15 to 17 in the Great Sound, the venue for next year’s America’s Cup.