Shorthanded Sailing in Sweden 2010

Pia L´Obry is the only, so far, swedish participant in the mini transat competititon. She sailed the race in 2003 in the proto class, SWE 316. She ended up as 11^th out of 32 which was a huge success due to that she only had sailed minis during the preparation year, 2002 and the actual racing year. For me she is still a main inspiration to do shorthanded/solo racing.

 

Swedish local shorthanded history is much about the Baltic Sea Marathon. It started in 1994 and was a doublehanded non stop race of about 600 Nm. For a long time this was the race to do for those who where interested in shorthanded sailing. However, from 2005-2007 the number of boats were decreasing so the last race was run in 2007.   

 

Despite of that, in the last couple of years we have seen an increased popularity of the swedish shorthanded races, which is very positive. Norway has been a great inspiration in the Watski2Star-Skagerrack and the OneStar races, which has had a couple of Swedish lucky sailors. Jonas Claesson, seen in the picture below, came 4^th 2007 in his H30, “Need Speed” and Peter Dahlsten in his X-382, “Chamsiin” was also 4^th 2009.

 

 

For those that are especially interested in solo racing the Westervik Shorthanded Race will be the race for the year. It will be an event over a weekend with focus on short races with a mix of typical swedish archipelago sailing and offshore sailing. Evenings are planned for socializing. 25 boats have entered interest uptil now. It´s a nice mixture of cruising/performance and shorthanded boats. Two mini´s, Pogo 8.50, H30, Mount Gay 30 and J/105 among those that are more shorthanded friendly. This is an event for you that want to try double/solo racing and get to know some of the Swedish sailors that are into this.

 

So for 2010 the main shorthanded races in the swedish waters will be the

-         Watski2Star-Baltic, double, 280 Nm, 125 boats

-         Westervik Shorthanded Race, double/solo, 30 + 30 Nm, 25 boats

-         Bohusracet, double, 170 Nm, 66 boats

-         Watski2Star-Skagerrack, double, 300 Nm,150 boats

More about other shorthanded races and sailing in Sweden in particular can be found on the main Swedish sailing blogg BLUR.