Getting a tow

Wind stopped play on the penultimate day of the Archipelago Raid

With practically no wind over the Baltic Sea the ninth leg of the Archipelago Raid was cancelled after two hours of sailing early this morning. The wind has picked up and the boats are now heading in good speed to Sandhamn in the Stockholm Archipelago.

The courageous teams started the fifth day of the Archipelago Raid at a beautiful 03.00 sunrise from Rödhamn, Åland, to once again head over the open stretch of the Baltic Sea to the Stockholm archipelago. After two hours of sailing on a flat calm sea, the organisers decided to cancel the leg, tow the boats to the northeast part of the Stockholm Archipelago and start the next leg from Fejan island as soon as the wind picked up. The teams are now sailing to the island of Sandhamn in a good pace in six to ten knots of wind.

The French duo on Team Kalix is still in the lead. Tired but happy with their race so far, skipper Eric Proust comments: “We have had great conditions, it is a great race! There are some really interesting teams in the race; Team Thule is very good at navigating, RBSC Huysman is very fast upwind and X-Leisure is a bomb all the time!”

Ellen MacArthur and Greg Homann, on BT, currently ninth, had a great start of leg ten today speeding away in ten knots upwind. Late afternoon yesterday the team had problems with their sail and had to stop to repair. They dropped to last but managed to climb to a 14th place of the leg. “We are really enjoying the race. There are a lot of tactics involved, which is interesting. We are not used to sailing this type of boat and we are learning a lot. And we are laughing a lot. We are tired but still laughing, which is giving us energy,” said Ellen MacArthur in good spirits before the start in Fejan today.

Conrad Humphreys and Ryan Crawford on Team BLUE Oceans sailed an excellent fifth day, gaining two firsts and two second placings at checkpoints throughout the day. With bonus points for finishing first at two of the checkpoints today, Team BLUE Oceans who currently sit in fourth place overall, have closed the gap on British rivals Will Sunnucks and Simon Farren ( X-Leisure) and go in to the final day of racing with only 6.5 points separating the two teams.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 18 June the race finishes late afternoon in the city of Stockholm.

Results:

1-Team Kalix - Proust/Motteau (FRA) 215.5
2-Team Thule - Strandberg/Ortendahl (SWE) 200.5
3-X-Leisure - Sunnucks/Farren (GBR) 184.5
4-Team BLUE® Oceans - Humphreys/Crawford (GBR) 178
5-RBSC Huysman - Demesmaeker/Proot (BEL) 165.5
6-Team Garmin - Back/Morin (SWE) 161
7-One Design Center - Hallsten/Hanes (SWE) 159
8-SWE 558 - Person/Westergren (SWE) 153
9-BT - MacArthur/Homann (GBR/AUS) 122
10-Dare 2 - Andre/Vercio (BEL/ITA) 119