Archipelago Raid - Good start for foreign teams

by Daniel Ferrando on 18 Aug 2009
On Monday the fleet of competitors in the ninth annual Archipelago Raid left Lidingö and Stockholm rapidly to stern as the 26 catamarans took advantage of between 8 and 12 knots of westerly wind and headed northeast out into the Stockholm Archipelago.

Although almost half of the teams are Swedish, it was three foreign teams that came off best immediately following the race start at 14.45 this afternoon. Team Cobalt, comprised of British sailors Luke Yeats and Conrad Humphries, was first to cross the starting line and head downwind, with the FG Porsche crew - Belgian sailors Francis Proot and Simon Van Acker - in second place. Nipping at their heels in third position were Team Audio Networks with British sailors William Sunucks and Simon Farren. It payed off to be close to the pin mark with Team FG Porsche briefly taking the lead at the second rounding for the start of the tack back up to Kyrkviken and the run to the first checkpoint at Bogesund.

The first phase of the race ends in the Stockholm archipelago, after which, early on Tuesday morning, the boats must cross 'Ålands Hav' over to Åland and Finland. They will be back in Swedish waters on Friday when the boats reach Sandhamn. On Saturday afternoon the exhausted crews will finish right back where they started, outside Lidingö in Stockholm, by which time they will have logged over 500 miles of sailing.

Event website click here