Bertrand Pacé leads Peter Gilmour to the downwind mark on his way to winning the second match in the best-of-five final of the Swedish Match Tour event in Split, Croatia. (Bob Grieser Outside Images)

Pacé and crew - Benoit Briand (headsails), Tanguy Caidou (mainsail), Fabrice Levet (tactics and pit) and Romain Troublé (bow) - defeated Peter Gilmour’s Pizza-La Sailing Team, 3-0, in the final that was plagued by light and extremely shifty winds.

"I feel relieved," Pacé said afterwards. "When it’s finished it’s very easy."

Pacé won the first flight outright. In the second flight he came from behind when the wind shifted 180 degrees during the race.

Team France trailed up the second beat, but jumped back into the match when the wind shifted to the right some 50 degrees halfway up the leg.

Holding starboard tack, Pacé and crew gained control of Gilmour when they forced him to tack to leeward moments later.

The wind would shift a full 180 degrees by the time the crews finished the match, with jibs hoisted instead of spinnakers, but that confrontation on the beat was the deciding moment in the match.

"Fabrice was calling for tacks to put the decision on Gilmour for which side of the course he wanted to protect," Pacé said. "It worked."

Gilmour got a penalty on Pacé in the third flight pre-start, but the Frenchman was able to extend far enough ahead in the light conditions to perform his penalty turn at the finish line and claim the championship while Gilmour was still some eight lengths behind.

"Bertrand did a good job," said Gilmour. "He started better than us and kept himself alive."

Gilmour’s second place finish was enough to clinch the Swedish Match Tour Championship for 2003-’04.

Gilmour and his Pizza-La crew - Rod Dawson (mainsail), Mike Mottl (headsails), Kazuhiko Sofuku (bow) and Yasuhiro Yaji (pit) - have totaled 117 of a possible 150 points.

In an amazing display of consistency, they have placed in the top four at all six Swedish Match Tour events.

"We came here to win a regatta," said Gilmour, clearly upset. "We’re consistently in the finals, but we’re not consistently winning. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board."

Gilmour has won two events, but he has placed second in the last two events. He lost to Russell Coutts at the Toscana Elba Cup two weeks ago. And he placed fourth at the Congressional Cup in April, after winning the round robin.

In today’s final, both crews were put to the test. A decent wind failed to materialize until late in the day. The first attention signal scheduled for 11:00 a.m. was postponed until 2:50 p.m.

A low-pressure system centered over host city Split was the culprit. The system moved over the area five to six hours earlier than predicted, and then parked, robbing the area of any kind of wind pressure.

The race committee attempted a flight around 2:00 in a southeasterly wind, but it quickly died after the first pair, the petit final match featuring Magnus Holmberg’s SeaLife Rangers versus Jes Gram-Hansen’s Team Denmark, started.

Their flight was abandoned after four and a half minutes.

Another 45 minutes passed before the race committee attempted to race again.

Once racing started, Pacé displayed a calm demeanor, despite the trying conditions. Despite competing in just his second event on Tour, he sailed brilliantly.

"My crew did a great job," he said. "Fabrice did a great job calling the wind and everyone was very supportive."

The win was Pacé’s first in two attempts on the 2003-’04 Swedish Match Tour. He placed fifth at the Toscana Elba Cup two weeks ago in Porto Azzurro, Italy.

"Bertrand did a great job all week," said bowman Troublé. "He concentrated all week. We only practiced for two days. He did a very nice job."

Pacé was particularly pleased with his starts. Gilmour is renowned for his finesse in the pre-start, but Pacé felt that was the key to his victory.

"I got what I wanted in every start," said Pacé, who started to the left of Gilmour in the first flight, and then to the right of him in the next two flights.

In the petit final, Holmberg defeated Gram-Hansen 2-0. Wind shifts and patchy conditions had an impact on the outcome.

In the second flight, Holmberg held a big lead up the first beat and around the windward mark. But Gram-Hansen attacked downwind, and closed up around the leeward mark.

Gram-Hansen gained the lead early on the second beat, and led around the second windward mark. He seemed on his way to victory, given that Holmberg was carrying a penalty for contact in the pre-start.

But Gram-Hansen sailed into a hole on the run and Holmberg, trailing, jibed away to the inside of him. Gram-Hansen tried jibing to cover, but couldn’t escape the clutches of the windless hole.

Holmberg retook the lead and did his penalty circle on the finish line. As soon as the race committee signaled Holmberg’s finish, Gram-Hansen, frustrated, fired up his engine and powered back to the dock.

The toast of Split (from left) : Romain Troublé, Bertrand Pacé, Fabrice Levet, Tanguy Cariou and Benoit Briand, winners of the ACI HTmobile Cup. (Bob Grieser/Outside Images)

• Swedish Match Tour 2003-04 Rankings
 (After six of eight events)

 1. Peter Gilmour/AUS, Pizza-La Sailing Team - 117 points
 2. Magnus Holmberg/SWE, SeaLife Rangers - 64 points
 3. Gavin Brady/NZL, BMW Oracle Racing - 55 points
 4. Jesper Radich/DEN, Team Denmark - 43 points
 5. Russell Coutts/NZL, Alinghi Team - 35 points
 = Bertrand Pacé/FRA, Team France - 35 points
 7. Ed Baird/USA, Team Musto - 31 points
 8. Jes Gram-Hansen/DEN, Team Denmark - 26 points

• Final ACI HTmobile Cup Standings

1. Bertrand Pacé/FRA, Team France, 17-2, $12,000
 Crew : Benoit Briand, Tanguy Caidou, Fabrice Levet, Romain Troublé

2. Peter Gilmour/AUS, Pizza-La Sailing Team, 13-8, $8,000
 Crew : Rod Dawson, Mike Mottl, Kazuhiko Sofuku, Yasuhiro Yaji

3. Magnus Holmberg/SWE, SeaLife Rangers, 13-7, $6,000
 Crew : Peter Anderson, Martin Krite, Lars Linger, Stefan Rahm

4. Jes Gram-Hansen/DEN, Team Denmark, 10-8, $4,000
 Crew : Michael Arnhild, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner, Chresten Plinius

5. Gavin Brady/NZL, BMW Oracle Racing, 9-5, $2,500
 Crew : John Kostecki, Craig Monk, Robbie Naismith, Brad Webb

6. Mathieu Richard/FRA, 7-6, $2,000
 Crew : Greg Evrard, Olivier Herledant, Alexis Ponsot Pierre, Yannick Simon

7. Mattias Rahm/SWE, Team Stena Bulk, 5-8, $1,500
 Crew : Johan Barne, Claes Dahlberg, Pontus Meijer, Henrik Valderyd

8. Kelvin Harrap/NZL, Team New Zealand, 5-9, $1,000
 Crew : Andy Hemmings, Jeremy Lomas, Grant Lorentz, Chris Ward

9. Staffan Lindberg/SWE, 3-11, $750
 Crew : Johan Karlsson, Daniel Mattsson, Johan Mossberg, Daniel Wallberg

10. Mate Arapov/CRO, 3-11, $750
 Crew : Ivan Bulaja, Luka Radelic Ognjen Uljevic, Stjepan Vitaljic

11. Frano Brate/CRO, 2-12, $750
 Crew : Boris Bakotic, Zvonko Jelacic, Denis Stanojevic, Mirko Ukas