Sandhamn heats up

Swedes go mad prior to start of Gotland Runt

261 will set sail tomorrow on the Accentura Gotland Runt, the Baltic's leading offshore race from the picture postcard island of Sandhamn, 40nm to the east of Stockholm in the depths of the Swedish archipelago.

Organised by the Royal Swedish Yacht Club (the KSSS) and held in different forms since the 1920s when it was known as the Visby Race, the course for this Baltic equivalent to the Fastnet Race is today 335 miles long and involves a clockwise loop of the island of Gotland directly south from Sandhamn and a dog leg on the west side of the island off Visby.

The event includes an interesting mis-mash of classes racing under IMS and ORC Club as well as one design classes inlcuding the J/80, J/120, Scampi and X-99. Prime attention seekers are unquestionably the three 60ft trimarans that are sailing the event as the final in their Baltic series, known as the Nokia Oops! Cup.

With the present outright record for the Accentura Gotland Runt standing at 24 hours, 40 minutes and 40 seconds, the key target for the 60ft trimarans is to break the 24 hour record. Unfortunately in the 5-10 knot northerly winds forecast for Sunday through until Monday, this looks highly unlikely.

“If the meteorologists keep talking about northerly and southerly winds, it will be quite hard," confirms Gore-Tex skipper and Whitbread/Volvo veteran Magnus Olsson, Sweden's most famous sailor. "If they could talk about easterly and westerly winds, I would start believing in new records." Olsson is looking to make a comeback after his boat (the former Pierre 1er, Lakota) began to break up in last weekend's Round Denmark race. "If you bet on me as winner of this year’s Round Gotland Race, I think there are very high stakes at the moment after our hull damage during Nokia Oops Cup," continued Olsson. "But I will be back."

While two of the Nokia Oops! Cup boats are from Sweden, the third is the Danish entry Nokia (ex- First Hotels, Fleury Michon XI). This year they are racing with the famous Swedish downhill skier Anja Pärson on board.

Klabbe Nylöf, skipper of Team HiQ (ex- Spirit of Apricot, Toshiba) who currently leads the Nokia Oops Cup, thinks they might just do it even if the chances are small. " HiQ have been very lucky in setting new speed records in each of the offshore races so far. In Faerder’n, Norway’s biggest offshore race, HiQ beat the record by 7 minutes, and in Sjaelland Runt by 8 hours and 30 minutes. So I wonder if we will be just as lucky in the Accenture Gotland Runt?” says Nylöf. Sailing on board HiQs Bruno Peyron present holder of the Jules Verne Trophy and the creator of The Race.

To beat the speed record, the trimarans need to maintain an average speed of just over 13.7 knots.

In the monohull race, overwhelming favourite is Gordon Kay's brand new 28.3m maxi Bols (see our interview with Kay, designer Hugh Welbourn and her builders Peter and Sari Ullrich). This will be Bols' second race outing since her blustery tour around Denmark last weekend. The crew includes a Who's Who of offshore racing talent from Doyle NZ heavies Richard Bouzaid and Justin Ferris, to Volvo sailors Billy Merrington, Rodney Ardern and Magnus Woxen and Finnish triple Olympian Jali Makila who will be driving. Hugh Welbourn is on tactics and Stuart Quarrie navigator. The Daily Sail editor James Boyd will be reporting from on board during the race.

Sadly this year the main competition for Bols are the three trimarans rather than any equivalent monohulls - it is believed that the owners of the 100footer Nokia have been unable to find sponsorship to campaign her this year. The nearest monohull challengers will be the seven boats taking part in the Volvo Baltic Race plus the additional ones entered only in the Gotland Runt - Assa Abloy, sailed by Mats Andersson and Northern Lights SAP of Bjorn Hansen, although Bols at 50% is likely to do a horizon job on them.

While the first starts are at 1300 local time tomorrow, the big boats and 60ft tris are setting sail at 1415 and the VO60s at 1400.

The weather forecast for the start is: cloudy with 15 knots NNE. On the eastern side of Gotland, the wind will be very, very light, shifting to the NNW, decreasing on Tuesday and Wednesday to very little wind at all.

Party time this afternoon outside Sandhamn's giant hotel and conference centre