Tris and Volvo 60s line up for Gotland Rund

Team SEB and djuice dragons and three 60ft tris will be locking horns on Sunday

Among the 400 entries in this weekend's Round Gotland Race will be two new Volvo Ocean 60s, the first occasion any of the new generation have lined up in anger. Gunnar Krantz's Team SEB will be racing two of their three boats (aside from the new boat they have the old Silk Cut and Toshiba and will be campaigning the former) against Knut Frostad's Norwegian team, djuice dragons.

In addition to the Round Gotland Race the Volvo Ocean 60s will be taking part in a feeder race to the start from Gothenburg to Sandhamn starting today (26 June). The Round Gotland Race itself starts on Sunday (1 July) and afterwards, on 5 July, the boats will also race back to Gothenburg. "We consider this an ideal opportunity to test the boat and crew for the first time under genuine race conditions," commented Team SEB skipper Gunnar Krantz. "Some competitive stimulus is just what we need right now, as we are in the middle of a period of intensive training and equipment optimization."

The Round Gotland Race is the Scandinavian equivalent to the Round the Island race, run by the Royal Swedish Yacht Club (KSSS), although at 350 miles it is considerably longer. The race starts from the port of Sanhamn on the island of Sandon, part of the Stockholm archipelago, where the KSSS has a 100-year-old clubhouse.

Yacht racing is going through a boom period at present in Sweden with the Volvo Ocean Race and there are many large racing yachts taking part (see page two for a list of the 'GR Open' entries).

For the first time multihulls are being allowed to take part and among this list are the three trimarans belonging to Atlant Ocean Racing, the company set up by Johan Salen and Richard Brisius, the brains behind the EF and Assa Abloy Whitbread/Volvo racing teams. Over recent years the company has acquired three older generation 60ft trimarans, including Tony Bullimore's Spirit of Apricot, Steve Fossett's Lakota (originally Florence Arthaud's Pierre 1er) and one of Philippe Poupon's many Fleury Michon trimarans. These are now respectively known as Toshiba, Sony and First Hotelsand race in their own grand prix circuits, similar to a scaled-down version of the ORMA circuit with added corporate hospitality.

Although the trimarans will certainly take line honours, other monohulls to look out for include Cap Gemini, the 100ft Supermaxi, completed at Pendennis, previous winner Ludde Indvall's Simonis designed Nicorette. Strangely these ocean racing giants are in the same class as two 21ft Minis.

See page two for a list of 'GR Open' entries...