Three hours of paddling

The first day of the Archipelago Raid has come to a close

Leg one of the Archipelago Raid from Stockholm to Fejan started yesterday, Monday, morning with very little wind under grey skies. The Scandinavian teams were in the lead straight from the start, being the more experienced and stronger paddlers.

At the first checkpoint on the picturesque island of Badholmen Anders Lewander and Hanse Thorslund ( Team Tidermans SWE) finished first after three hours of paddling and little sailing. The race committee decided to pause the race for an hour to wait for more wind. After the individual restart the wind quickly filled in from the northeast at eight knots gusting up to 12.

Immediately after the restart the fleet had to navigate the breathtaking and extremely narrow channel of Stegesund filed with rocks. Afterwards, the course took the catamarans into a wider and open stretch of water, where the leaders were beating into the wind twin trapezing.

Roughly two hours later Team Tidermans (Anders Lewander and Hanse Thorslund SWE) were also the first team that arrived at Checkpoint three at Häststede. They were in a tacking duel with GB Glace ((Nissar and Schiratzki SWE) just a few minutes later followed by Sogetti (Woxen SWE and Foxall IRL).

First full foreign team to check in was X-Leisure with Will Sunnucks and Mark Self (GBR) as 11th team. Sunnucks made a huge jump up in the leader board passing the other Dutch teams that came in after the British pairing.

Leg one ends at Fejan, the most north-eastern point of the Stockholm Archipelago. First teams are expected at 22.00 hours. At this stop the teams get the chance to eat and rest until at least 02.00 hours on 27 June before the fleet restarts together. Leg two continues across an open stretch of the Baltic Sea for 32 miles to the Älland Archipelago. According to the weather predictions the wind will increase to 20 to 25 knots from the North East during the night. The race committee can also decide to restart later than 0200 hours for safety reasons.

Entry List:

Team Name	Nationality
40+ (Karlsson & Charette)	SWE
AB Gustavsberg (Degsell & Mickos)	SWE
Aktivitetsteamet (Åström & Albinsson)	SWE
Brossard (Bourgnon & Gagliani)	SWI/GER
Buster (Schibbye & Brusewitz)	SWE
Easy Riders (Frii & Hansson)	SWE
Garmin - RBSC (Demesmaeker & de Frahan)	GER
GB Glace (Nissar & Schiratzki)	SWE
Glenn Marine Racing (Kjerstadius & Tempelman)	SWE
Inntech Slam (Tengbom & Engstrand)	SWE
Karlberg Media AB (Karlberg & Brunnberg)	SWE
Nikita F18 (Walther & Walther)	GER
Novo Nordisk (Sjöberg & Simonsson)	SWE
Sailing Team SPP (Hansen & Lewander)	NOR/SWE
SBS (Haasum & Dahlberg)	SWE
Simboloxico ( Riihelä & Bask)	FIN
Sogeti (Woxén & Foxall)	SWE/IRL
St Jude Medical (Gnosspelius & Grape)	SWE
Stelacon (Linder & Haals)	SWE/NOR
Sundvallsbygg och Fastighets AB (Ekman & Tempelma	SWE
Team Kempff (Kempff & Nordström)	SWE
Team KTH (Söder & Skällenäs)	SWE
Team Lefant (Murquist & Åkerman)	SWE
The Little Gym (Bäckman & Brodin)	SWE
Tidermans (Lewander & Thorslund)	SWE
Voltaren (Westergren & Scully)	SWE/USA
X-Leisure (Sunnuck & Self)	GBR/GBR
Yamaha Blue (Larsen & van Geest)	NED
Yamaha Red (Devanneeaux & Heemskerk)	FRA/NED
Yamaha Silver (de Koning & Vincent)	NED/FRA
Yamarin (Proust & Navarin)	FRA