Rock hopping around the Swedish isles

David Scully describes his race with Clare Bailey in the Archipelago Raid. Photos by Kristen Scully

The Swedish Archipelago is a large area of glaciated basalt bumps, with a skim of water almost covering it. From the air, it looks like the tablecloth after a large French lunch. There are charts, but they are not very good. In fact, the Finnish mapping agency prohibits the distribution of accurate charts as part of the national defense. The Atlant organisation’s Archipelago Raid launches a gaggle of Formula 18 catamarans into this tranquil wilderness, and makes them pick their way through the thousand gulfs and ditches at the best speed they can manage under sail or paddle, or both.

And, except for a 24 hourly pitstop, you keep going for five days. So, when the wind blows, you sail, when it doesn't, you paddle, when it blows a little, you paddle and sail. And you hardly ever stop. Because if you do, you are going to lose sight of the local boys, who know where they are going, and will have to resort to plotting your route off a chart on a trampoline with 15 to 20 knots of apparent wind trying to turn the chart into unsecured sail area.

Navigation will be a strong point for us, I thought. After all, with a chart, and a GPS, how far wrong can you go. We soon understood why the locals did not bother with GPS. It has to do with the basalt bumps that form a maze between you and where you want to go. Everything is around a corner, and the corner is coming closer at 15 knots.

Race winner Will Sunnucks adopted the simple strategy of following a fast Swede until he could figure out where the checkpoint was, then dropping a gear and blowing by the competition on the home stretch. Awesome tune, awesome boatspeed, and a very difficult feat to beat the locals in their home water.

Another good reason to latch on to a local is to avoid the underwater rocks. At race end, most of the foils looked like they had been attacked by leaf cutter ants. On day two, in a mad predawn start, Claire and I were chute reaching when the boat just ahead came to a sudden stop and flipped ass-over-tip. “Gybe now”, I yelled, but Claire was pinned by leeward boats, and we followed the Poles onto a mattress-sized boulder inches below sea level.



I wrapped the split boards in tape on the long gybe out to Aland, but we were to face a long upwind in 25 knots before we reached Lappo, and by the time we arrived, they were shredded. There providence intervened in the form of a helpful Finn who drove me and the boards to a boatbuilder’s shed on a nearby island. By the 0400 start the next day, we had sawed off the worst of the damage and patched what was left.

The terrain was taking it’s toll on the competition too. Hobie Tiger world champ Gerard Navarin, and French trimaran skipper Yvon Bourgnon had shipped four boards and broken them all. Two teams retired from exhaustion, another because they became totally lost and a fourth crashed and dismasted.

A screaming reach out of Finland became a painful paddle as the Swedish shore approached. An hour’s pitstop, and then on into the night, Claire kneeling on the chart, plotting by head torch light. Islands loomed out of the pitch dark, some expected, and some not. Safely in Sandhamn by two in the morning, we grabbed an hour’s sleep on the dock before the 0330 briefing.

Dawn boiled up black and menacing. We crossed the last start line in a black front, and flew downwind, gybing through the squalls. A checkpoint later, we were beating back up into 20 to 30 knots of clear, cold northerly.

The race was a challenge on every level. Sailing, endurance, navigation, strength. The many checkpoints created interesting natural hazards for the sailors, while allowing the organization to maintain high level of safety. We also enjoyed the intense natural beauty of the Archipelago, the red dawns and dusks, the piny smell of the islands, and the friends we met there. Raw handed, red eyed, and starving as we are now, we can’t wait to come back next year.

More photos on the following pages...