400 miles in an F18

The Archipelago Raid has finished today, Saturday, with a hard final paddle to the finish line

The last leg of the Archipelago Raid started yesterday morning, Saturday, near Björnö Beach in the Stockholm Archipelago. Team Tidermans (Anders Lewander and Hanse Thorslund SWE) won the leg. Overall victory went to Team Sogeti (Magnus Woxen SWE and Damian Foxall IRL.)

After breaking up the campsite, it was back to business as usual on the trampoline of their catamaran. The sun was out really early and the sea breeze kicked in quickly at around 10.30 hours, allowing a 10.45 start of leg nine to Sandhamn. In other words good conditions to finish in style after racing for more than 400 nautical miles through 100,000 islands and nameless rocks.

At the start of this leg Magnus Woxen (SWE) and Damian Foxall (IRL) on Sogeti were comfortably in the lead in the overall ranking. But they had the worst start of the whole series. “We wanted to take it easy and not take any risks, but this was too easy,” Woxen said after the finish. “But we managed to cross the line in sixth place.” That was quite an achievement, also showing this teams speed and knowledge of the area. Anders Lewander and Hanse Thorslund on Team Tidermans (SWE) quickly took the lead in this last leg and never gave that up. As the wind dropped or in the lee of the islands this team was quick to drop the sails and start paddling Swedish style. That means paddling hard while singing Swedish drinking songs. The last few miles until the finish line turned into paddling hard again. They deserved the win and the second place overall with their endurance and perseverance and great sailing skills. “We never give up!” an exhausted Anders Lewander said just after crossing the line.

Woxen and Foxall were extremely happy with the win. “We have been talking about this during the whole last year in the Volvo,” said Foxall who sailed with Woxen on Ericsson around the world. “This is the icing on the cake, no it is the whole cake. I’m really very happy.”

At the finish in Sandhamn lots of Swedes came out to celebrate and cheer on the satisfied but tired adventurers. Sandhamn is the centre of the whole Swedish sailing fraternity this weekend with the start of the Eurocard Gotland Runt, Sweden’s biggest offshore sailing event on Sunday.

Results:

Pos	Team Name	Total Score
1	Sogeti (Woxén & Foxall)	220.5
2	Tidermans (Lewander & Thorslund)	193.5
3	Yamarin (Proust & Navarin)	188
4	GB Glace (Nissar & Schiratzki)	184
5	X-Leisure (Sunnuck & Self)	180.5
6	Sundvallsbygg och Fastighets AB (Ekman & Tempelma	179.5
7	Glenn Marine Racing (Kjerstadius & Tempelman)	179.5
8	Yamaha Blue (Larsen & van Geest)	178
9	Brossard (Bourgnon & Gagliani)	174
10	St Jude Medical (Gnosspelius & Grape)	172
11	Novo Nordisk (Sjöberg & Simonsson)	158
12	Inntech Slam (Tengbom & Engstrand)	153
13	Sailing Team SPP (Hansen & Lewander)	152
14	Garmin - RBSC (Demesmaeker & de Frahan)	150.5
15	AB Gustavsberg (Degsell & Mickos)	141
16	Yamaha Silver (de Koning & Vincent)	122
17	Simboloxico ( Riihelä & Bask)	112
18	Voltaren (Westergren & Scully)	82
19	Aktivitetsteamet (Åström & Albinsson)	81
20	Karlberg Media AB (Karlberg & Brunnberg)	78
21	Stelacon (Linder & Haals)	78
22	Team KTH (Söder & Skällenäs)	42
23	Yamaha Red (Devanneeaux & Heemskerk)	38
24	Team Kempff (Kempff & Nordström)	21
25	Team Lefant (Murquist & Åkerman)	19
26	Nikita F18 (Walther & Walther)	16
27	The Little Gym (Bäckman & Brodin)	13
28	Buster (Schibbye & Brusewitz)	12
29	40+ (Karlsson & Charette)	10
30	SBS (Haasum & Dahlberg)	9
31	Easy Riders (Frii & Hansson)	6

Photos courtesy of Thierry Martinez http://www.thmartinez.com