Swede gets the trimaran bug

Cape-Rio winner Klas Nylöf talks to The Daily Sail about his plans

If all goes according to plan the ORMA 60ft trimaran circuit may soon see a Swedish entry joining its ranks. For this is the ultimate aim of Klas Nylöf, who recently competed in the Volvo Ocean Race on board Neal McDonald's Assa Abloy and four years previously was with Paul Cayard on EF Language.

Nylöf has just won line honours in the SAP Cape-Rio race on board Nicator, the former Pierre 1er/ Lakota, which he chartered off Atlant, the company behind the ASSA ABLOY and EF round the world campaigns and the Oops! Cup in Sweden. In the race he sailed six up with his round the world race partner in crime, Magnus Woxén, his boatbuilder brother Fredrik, Andreas Andersén, young Swedish match racer Marie Öberg and film producer Johan Torén.

For Nylof the race was one of mixed emotions. It was great to be racing a 60ft trimaran across the South Atlantic, he says. Unfortunately the St Helena high at this time was virtually straddling the South African and South American continents and put what seemed to be a sure fire course record just beyond their reach.

"We missed the record by a couple hours," Nylöf told The Daily Sail. "The race had been extremely light. We haven’t had any wind. So I’m happy to be inside the 12 days. Looking at Morning Glory and also Adrenalina Pura I think we have done a very good race."

Nylöf says that in the light conditions they simply tried to keep the boat going in one direction and he feels it was an interesting race tactically despite the light conditions because they and their main competition, the Irens cat Adrenalina Pura and Hasso Plattner's maxi Morning Glory all tried to tackle the high in different ways.

"It was good to get through the high pressure like it was," said Nylöf. " Adrenalin Pura went around the top of the high pressure. Morning Glory went a little bit like us, tried to go towards the mark and find a way through the high pressure, but I think they suffered most in the end."

For Nylöf, the Cape-Rio race was the start of his program towards a new 60ft trimaran. The boat has changed little since she has been in Atlant's possession and is now quite dated in comparison to the French fleet. Nylöf says they did the race to see if they liked sailing a boat of this sort offshore for a prolonged period.



"We tried to learn from it as much as possible with the plan to build a new boat over the winter," says the Swede of this ultimate plan for this year.

In the meantime he hopes to charter one of the French boats to up their game a little during this season. "We are negotiating with a couple of guys, so we’ll see what happens. Unfortunately it has become a little bit of a disaster after the Route du Rhum because a lot of the boats got destroyed. So there is a lot of work on some of them and we have to change a little bit our plans. But I think we will sort it out and get a boat in the end. In a worst case scenario we could use this boat. We need to develop a little bit and move a little closer to the actual boats that are sailing today," he explains.

If they manage to charter a boat then it is likely that they will spend most of this season sailing it in Scandinavia. While Atlant and in particular Magnus Olsen, who loves 60ft trimarans, have gone some way to popularise the class with their Oops Cup in Sweden, Nylöf says there is still some way to go before he can get a budget for a new boat on a par with the French tris. "The market in Scandinavia at the moment, we have to train the companies about what we are doing and that takes a bit of time. So it is really more commercial activity for us, trying to dig in there."

The exception will be the Fastnet Race and this is the only occasion that he may encounter the French 60ft trimarans this year. He has also discussed in vague terms, the possibility of entering the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre in the autumn. "We have talked about it, but right now we feel we won’t be really prepared for it. I really would love to do the Jacques Vabre, but I want to do it on the level where I could do something good about it and not just be there for the sake of it. It costs quite a lot of money. If you want to do it, you have to be in shape where you can do something. There’s no point in going there and being last."

At present the problem - as ever - is money. "It has been really tough," he says of getting money even in Sweden. "It is not a depression, but…the good thing I would say is that sailing in Sweden, people know that they should get something out of it. But it has been tough. All the companies are coming down on people. Most of the guys look on the bright side. If we survive this winter…" He believes that once the economic tide turns once again many big names will be wanting to get into sailing.