San Francisco-May 17-Peter Holmberg of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands led his Team Caribbean America's Cup challenge match racing team to victory today in the Golden Gate Invitational hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club.  Holmberg and crew John Cutler (tactican), Ben Beer, (Bow), and Morgan Avery (Trimmer) came from a race down to defeat Great Britain's Andy Green in the semi-finals and then took two straight from Jeff Magdrigali, representing San Francisco Yacht Club's AmericaTrue America's Cup syndicate, in the final.

Green got the jump on the Caribbean team in the first race of the semi-finals, raced in relatively light air of under 10 knots.  But as the breeze freshened and Holmberg and crew perfected a race start technique they improvised at the beginning of the regatta, the team's experience and boat handling proved too much for the British team.

"Out here on San Francisco Bay," said Holmberg, "racing is tough stuff.   You're looking at good breezes, a strong current, waves, and not particularly user-friendly yachts.  We decided in the beginning to place another crewman into the cockpit during the start to handle the trim.  Other teams left the main trimming to the helmsman, but we found by having both my hands free allowing me to concentrate solely on gaining control of the race in the pre-start, we could be very aggressive and it paid off.  We won most of our starts."

By winning the most points (11) in the two round robins; raced on Friday and Saturday,  Holmberg won the right to choose his opponent in the semis.  His choice of Green was calculated.  He had lost to Tony Rey of the Young America syndicate backed by the New York  Yacht Club in both races in the round robins and he knew that Madrigali had beat Rey once,  while he had won both battles against Madrigali.

The strategy paid off as Madrigali took out Rey in the semis, and in winds now between 15-20 knots, Holmberg won the two final races by 10 and 22 seconds.

"Both races were true battles," said Holmberg.  "They were close from gun to gun.  The award of the day goes to Morgan who was tireless in trimming, and as we managed to lead both races, Madro forced us into tacking and jibing duels.  Any mistake on our part or gear failure may have easily reversed the outcome."