More Gotland Runt photos...

D29 "Funny".

Scampi "Lenetta" - 3rd position overall.

First 31,7 "Grymt Grå" - 38th position SRS2.

Omega 36.

Scampi "Ulrika" - 6th place overall.

The Gotland Runt ribbon.

Gotska Sandön late evening day one.

Early morning day two.

"Stress" with sail no 53.

Dehler 41 "Midnight Rambler", 17th position overall ORC Int Bravo.

"Solid Tango". 10th place overall - solid.

Not much wind in the evening of day two.

Björn Österberg spotted at the helm of Arcona 460 "Salt".

"Salt".

"Ran".

Some tight racing even around Hoburgen.

And then came the fog...

Yours truly trying to work the spinnaker.

Those summer days...

"Kind of Blue" and "Josefin" partnering at Säck. (Photo: Torbjörn Risberg)

"Josefin" towards beam reach at Näsefjärden. (Photo: Torbjörn Risberg)

Bend it like... a Safir.

The Stockholm archipelago always offers some spectacular sceneries.

"Josefin" at Biskopsö.

A minute's calm before entering the gale again.

Those stunning July evenings.

Definitely two of the best kept wooden motor yachts I've ever seen.

A very common sight during the Swedish summer. Family cruising with an inflatable dinghy on a string. The size of the boats has also increased drastically the past 10 years.

Bullerö packed with boats for the evening. It's July alright.

Some boats look more like art than anything else. What a beauty.

Launch control

One highly practical tool for today's North Sails spinnakers is actually the sail bag. As simple as that might sound someone did really think this through a couple of times before heading to the sewing machine. It's easy to attach to the guardrails on each side of the boat and also forward on each side of the pullpit. Green/red has worked before in haisty situations - also here. The bag opens wide and therefore there is very little risk of getting the chute stuck in the bag while hoisting. True - none of this is excessive in terms of "inventions" but it's definitely the best spinnaker bag I've ever used and does by all means provide "launch control". However, getting the thing down again is obviously as tricky (or easy...) as before.

Ready to race!

Chute tested and ready.

Following the purchase of a new main sail and spinnaker "Josefin" is finally ready to race. Getting them sails was actually the easy part - finding the guts to start drilling holes in the boat for fittings etc. was much more difficult. But now it's finally completed and all the blocks, rope clutches, downhaul, lift etc. are in place. Thanks for all the help and moral support Tobbe! It looks like the race premiere will be Gran Prix on September 3rd. For now though it'll be two weeks of crusing around the Stockholm archipelago. Good times...

Gotland Runt 2011 (or whatever the sponsor ÅF has chosen to call it)

A very long Gotland Runt this year. Somewhere south of Visby it felt like it would just never end. Everyone looking for wind - at least a breeze or light puff. But nothing. So the hours went by and on "Stress" we started to calculate the remaining food and water supplies just in case we would be stuck in the calm for days. Suddenly we could see some wind on the water far behind us in the horizon. Proof of this was also the spinnakers behind us which all started to fill.

Finally we got at least some wind to help us north towards Almagrundet. Some two hours later the wind died again. When a cold front finally past by later that evening did we get enough wind speed to dare talking about a real wind shift and a Saturday finish. From then on we actually had some 4-10 knots wind with us up to Sandhamn and could cross the finish line a little after 5pm (Saturday). That can be compared with last year's race where we finished around 4 am on Saturday morning.

A few days earlier we actually passed Östergarn in 5th position but lost a lot of speed against competing boats as the wind started to die on us. A pure struggle to round the marker at Hoburgen and all the way up to Visby we got literally nothing for free. We also dropped through the field. Foggy and no wind - a bad combination for any sailor and "Stress" does require a bit of wind to make use of her waterline. But we ended up in 17th place overall and are quite happy about it, given the circumstances.

And in any event - just like last year we had a great time on board and I would like to thank the entire crew - Dick, Pauline, Per, Jenny and Fredrik for all the great laughs, delicious food and unbreakable team spirit. And a special thanks to Dick and Pauline for making this all happen.

(More photos to follow...).

Sandhamn buzzing before race day...

KSSS registering boats as they pass by.

Boats checking out the pre-start weather conditions.

Several Dehlers on the starting line.


"Vindile" ended up the winner of SRS Alfa 1.

Dehler 29 "Svea". Finished 23rd (SRS Alfa 2).

A really strong race performance by Dehler 29 "Funny" - 9th place (SRS Alfa 2).

Crowded waters around Almagrundet.

Even and relatively strong winds southbound towards Gotska Sandön.

Getting close to dead calm - one of many.

The giant. ("Ran")

Jimmy Hellberg's "Airbender". Plenty of fog in this year's Gotland Runt.

During a period of 10 minutes we actually gained on and overtook this Dehler 44 just north of Visby. The scenario changed quite drastically when the wind picked up again...

Swan 46 "Wafi" passing us in leeward.

With several boats still on the race track most boats were already celebrating their finish on Saturday afternoon.