Worlds day 6 – Not our day

Today the World Championship ended in Kiel with two inshore up/down races in very light winds. Wind was around 5-6 knots at the start and although this is not our preferred conditions we also did not sail so well today and being in the Gold fleet having mostly larger/faster boats makes it even harder to find free wind and doing our own race on the course. In todays first race we also had a penalty situation and we had to make turns and in the very light winds this took its time and we got away from the start as the last boat in the 34 boat Gold fleet, ending in place 24. In the second race we had a much better start but again we did some mistakes and being punished for being a slow boat in the light conditions and ended in place 15. We have to analyze later with some distance what we could have done better but it was not the greatest of sailing days for the team and we are all very disappointed now.

With todays result our series for the Worlds were: 2, 4, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, (24) and 15 and total 32 after one discard. We missed the podium with one point and ended fourth in the Open class and on second place in the Corinthian division. So going out today in the lead and then ending only fourth was really not something we are proud of and we all feel sad about it as we had hoped for more. All results are here: ORC Worlds Results

We will now leave Kiel and give this some time and then analyze and reflect what and how we could have done things different this last day after a regatta where we had sailed well all days before. We hope of course to be back again and try once more…

We thank all our competitors and congratulate especially the open podium winners Sugar 3, Matilda 4 and Arabela for really good sailing!

We also thank the organizers of the Worlds and we have enjoyed being in Kiel even if the weather maybe had not been the best with a lot of rain during the week.

Worlds days 4 and 5 – first in offshore and podium place in two inshore races

During yesterday Thursday the World Championship in offshore sailing continued in Kiel with some 120 participating boats. We started on Thursday with two inshore races, up/down. We continued like the day before to sail really well and conditions was now lighter compared to earlier in the week with around 15 knots of wind. We managed to come on second and in third place during these inshore races and it is really tight in the top and one race we lost with only 9 seconds. Also, for us having a slower boat compared to many others being in the top places it is also harder to find free wind and we have to adapt to others more than they need to.

Then we had a short break on Thursday afternoon before the long offshore race started at 19 on Thursday evening and for us in Class C it was a 85 nm course planned taking approximately 12 hours over night. Again, we sailed really well and after a fantastic start (first to reach the rounding after first beat) we had great strategy/tactics as well as excellent boat handling and speed! We feel that compared to other teams we have an advantage racing in darkness as we have great instruments and know how fast the boat should go with different sails plus that we also practice that.

This means that after 5 days of Worlds and 8 completed races we have the series: 2, 4, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3 and 1 with a total score of 17. We are in second place overall with Matilda 4 in the lead with 15 points and on third place Sugar 3 with 20 points. This means we have overall two race wins so far during this Worlds and a average score so far of a bit more than 2 per race.

See the result list here:

In the Corinthian division we are in the lead with 10 points. Results here:

We are pleased to have a podium place now before the last day but tomorrow everything will be settled and we will of course do what we can to win but competition will be very hard and tomorrow we will also sail in the Gold fleet with the top half of the 68 Class C boats so it will be even harder for us to find that free wind but we will do out very best!

Worlds day 3 – best Class C boat today!

Today racing continued in the ORC World Championship in Kiel with three races, first a coastal race for about two hours and then in the afternoon two up/down races. We have sailed really well today and managed to get a 2, 2 and our first 1 in this Worlds! Overall, we won the day in Class C and with this score. Overall, during the five races so far we have 2, 4, 2, 2 and 1 with an overall score of 11. We are overall in third place but just one point after Matilda 4 that are in the lead with 10 points. All results here (Class C): Worlds results

Overall, we have sailed very well today and very few mistakes with good starts, tactics, speed and maneuvers. The wind was a bit less today but we still had mostly around 20 knots of wind with gusts over 30 knots. We are especially please with todays last race where we took line honors being the first boat to finish (many other boats are supposed to be faster) and as well winning the race on corrected time with a large margin – this was our best race so far in this Worlds!

Tomorrow racing continues and the plan is to sail two up/down races with at 11 and then a long offshore race over night with start at 19. We hope for another good day and will do everything we can to repeat then good sailing we had today! The weather forecast seems to predict some lighter winds after the first days of strong winds. Then final day of racing, with two planned up/down races, will be on Saturday. Next update on the blog will come on Friday after the long offshore race.

Worlds Day 2 – 4th place for us in todays Coastal race

The Offshore World Championship continued in Kiel today on its second day. Due to continued strong winds we only sailed one two-hour coastal race today. Winds were between 15-35 knots today. We sailed again relatively well and finished on 4th place. Again, we had a lot of reaching and it is difficult to compete with the J-112’s and Italia 11.98’s that are boats that are around a meter longer than us and have an advantage in that respect in these type of courses we had today and yesterday (there are three J-112’s in the lead in total). Today, the first four boats finished in around one minute so it shows how tight/close the racing is and there is no room for mistakes. Overall, our series after two days of 2 and 4 gives a total of 6 points and a 4th place overall in Class C with a total of 68 boats. See results here (Class C for us): World Results

The racing today was fun with a lot of sail shifts and maneuvers but quite wet with rain and strong winds when we got out of the Kiel channel. We had hoped for a podium place also today but our first leg was maybe not good enough due to a wind shift that was not advantageous for us.

Going forward the schedule for the Worlds has been updated today and tomorrow there will be one Inshore/Coastal race followed by up to two up/down races. The updated schedule is as below:

We will do our very best for tomorrow and where we hope for 2-3 races. Overall, with the updated schedule we have now done 2 out of up to 10 races so a lot of competition remains and we are well positioned to hopefully fight for the podium places!

Worlds Day 1 – second place in todays coastal race

Due to the heavy wind conditions the schedule had been changed and we did a 1.5 hour coastal race in around 25-30 knots of wind. We managed to sail relatively well and finished second in our blue group of the Class C fleet. Overall results from today is here: Worlds Day 1 Results.

The race today included a lot of reaching with a short upwind and downwind. Even if we sailed ok there were several things we can improve for the days to come. Tomorrow is it not yet clear what course we are going to sail and it depends how heavy the wind forecast will be. One alternative is that we will sail a longer offshore course of 85 nm or around 12 hours.

Thanks for the pictures from us today that someone put on our FB page!

ORC Worlds starts tomorrow

All preparations are now done and tomorrow the ORC Worlds starts here in Kiel. Today we did a practice race and after two general recalls at the start unfortunately we started too early and was disqualified but the good thing was it was only for practice.

Tomorrow the plan was for the long offshore race to start estimated at around 30 hours sailing but unfortunately the weather forecast predict heavy winds up to 50 knots in the gusts so the organizers have decided to change the schedule and tomorrow do a shorter coastal race of around two hours. In one way we feel this is too bad given we perform usually quite well in those windy conditions offshore but in one way you can also understand the organizers decision to make this change.

We will of course do everything we can to sail as good as we can tomorrow and then we will see how the organizers will adapt the schedule and when the long offshore race will be planned. The forecasts predicts quite a lot of wind to Wednesday but maybe slightly less than on Monday evening/night.

ORC Worlds starting next weekend in Kiel!

After some rest after Gotland Runt early July (where we managed to win overall) we are now getting ready for this seasons most important race being the ORC World Championship in Kiel Germany starting next weekend. ”Malin” is on its way to Kiel and the rest of the crew will meet in Kiel mid next week for some practice and preparations before the Worlds starts.

There are around 120 participating boats in the World Championship and we have around 70 boats in Class C. See more about the Worlds and who is coming here: ORC Worlds.

We have good memories from the last Worlds we participated in, Tallinn 2021, where we came third in the open class and won the corinthian class. Once again we will meet Matilda 4 and Sugar 3 who came in front of us in the open class during the last Worlds (and all the rest of the boats) and we will do our best to try to beat them this time!

For this Worlds there are some changes and there will be less focus on up/down courses and we may instead do a coastal race almost every day but we will see how they plan things. As before, Worlds will start with a long offshore race over night with start on next Monday morning. There are five Swedish boats in Class C and two in Class B so overall 7. We will provide regular updates especially during the Worlds.

Gotland Runt prisutdelning & regattamiddag

Efter en välbehövlig natts vila var det i onsdags dags för prisutdelning och regattamiddag efter vår totalseger och klassvinst i årets Gotland Runt. Vi hade med (nästan) hela teamet samt en hel del respektive vilket var roligt. Bild nedan från fördrinken innan prisutdelningen.

På prisutdelningen var det oväntat mycket folk vilket var kul!

Det blev flera fina priser och vi fick totalt tre vandringspokaler som nu kommer få Team Pro4u graverat/tillagt, en för klasseger i ORCi B, Hoburgen pris och till sist den finaste pokalen för Totalvinst. Pokalerna i mitten nedan på bilden.

Även vår meteorolog Martin Hedberg som vi fått väldigt bra hjälp av och som vi kommer fortsätta samarbeta med också över VM var med oss under kvällen vilket var roligt.

Till sist blev det regattamiddag och sedan lite dans.

Text: Anders Björk

Bilder: KSSS och Team Pro4u

Totalseger i årets Gotland Runt!

Idag tisdag 4 juli gick vi i mål i årets Gotland Runt ca 13:20 ungefär 49 timmar efter starten i söndags. Vi lyckades väldigt väl och för första gången vann vi i Team Pro4u totalt Gotland Runt samt även vår klass ORCi B.

Vi vann totalt med ca 1 timme och 20 minuter före tvåan på beräknad tid och bara drygt 20 båtar tog sig i mål, se resultaten här: Totalresultat

Vår klass ORCi B vann vi med drygt 7 timmar på beräknad tid, se resultaten här: ORCi Klass B Resultat

Totalt av de ca 180 anmälda båtarna till årets Gotland Runt var det väldigt många (merparten) som bröt racet antingen innan givet prognoserna om väldigt mycket vind eller under racet troligen för att saker går sönder, man känner sig osäker, har inte tränat i hård vind eller råkar ut för mycket sjösjuka ombord.

Här finns en av de många saker vi i besättningen uppskattar mycket med vår skeppare Patrik Forsgren för även om också vi visste att det skulle bli ett tufft race, visste vi att båten ”Malin” var i toppskick och man litar på att saker håller och fungerar även i hårt väder med mycket vind och vågor. Ombord hos oss var det aldrig några tankar på att inte starta och istället försökte vi förbereda oss innan på bästa sätt och lyckligtvis höll allt som det skulle och båten fungerade perfekt. Dock drabbades även vi av en del sjösjuka och sådant är alltid tufft att hantera, speciellt för den drabbade.

Vi är väldigt glada och stolta över denna totalseger i Gotland Runt och flera av oss ombord har lång erfarenhet med runt 20 genomförda Gotland Runt de flesta av oss har varit utan totalseger till nu. Sedan kommer det kanske bli extra speciellt för att årets upplaga tillsammans med 1993 och 2019 går till historien som bland de blåsigaste och i år bröt fler båtar än någonsin tidigare (hela 87% har inte kommit till start eller brutit).

Vi har gjort ett riktigt bra Gotland Runt med mycket bra taktik och strategi som Peter Thorwid och Roger Nilson ansvarat för. På fördäck och mast har järngänget Emil Forsgren och Zacharias Krafft huserat. Keyboard var Emil Alnebeck och försegeltrim har Linnea Floser och undertecknad Anders Björk ansvarat för. Storskotning har den glada och duktiga Ålänningen Thomas Tennström skött (reserv för ordinarie Sven) och till sist var Patrik Forsgren rorsman och skeppare.

Årets race började ju med skärgårdsdelen som är en fantastisk del av Gotland Runt med start mitt i city för att sedan segla sig ut till Sandhamn med massor av båtar och ibland smala passager. Vi startade ganska sent och lyckades segla om massor av båtar till vi kom ut på havet utanför Sandhamn. Den delen hade ganska lätta till medelvind och skiljer sig helt från vad som väntade sedan på havet. Delen från fyren Almagrundet till Hoburgen var den tuffaste i år och det var väl också här flest båtar bröt. Det var mestadels kryss eller stäckbogar i hård vind mestadels runt 25-30 knop med toppar en bit över 40 knop. Det var kallt, blött, tufft och utmanade med en så pass lång sträcka hela tiden på öppet hav, svårt att få till ordentlig vila och mat. Som vanligt när man sedan rundar Hoburgen får man en skön känsla för nu är man på väg hem och vi fick medvind och allt blir bättre och lättare ombord. Första delen upp till Visby (vi behövde inte runda bojen inne i Visby i år, bra beslut av KSSS och kanske kan man permanent strunta i denna rundning?) körde vi vår Jibtop med stagsegel och det gick som vanligt stabilt och fint i vinden som fortsatte ligga runt 25 knop. När vi sedan passerat Visby och kunde falla några grader hade vi diskussion ombord om vi skulle köra spinnaker och eftersom vi jagade totalen satsade vi och hissade vår till ytan fullstora S3 i 30 knops vind (ett rev på storen) och här började en fantastisk repa upp till Almagrundet där vi de första timmarna när vinden oftast låg mellan 28 och 34 knop och vi åkte riktigt snabbt med ett par toppar på 21,2 knop (nytt fartrekord för båten). Denna sista långa slör hem kommer man garanterat minnas hela livet med stor glädje, fantastiskt att kunna åka så fort med en sådan typ av båt vi har! Så klart hjälper det att vi tränat ganska mycket och många ombord har erfarenhet av hårt väder.

Vi hade också en ombord reporter under årets race och vi hoppas Saga hade det OK ombord hos oss! Vi vill också tacka KSSS för en mycket väl genomförd kappsegling och kul att också få kappsegla i riktigt hård väder som testar gränserna för team och båtar och visa att grundlig förberedelse och träning ger result och racet var egentligen ganska odramatiskt på ett positivt sätt för oss på det stora hela och stämningen ombord har varit mycket bra hela vägen.

Imorgon kväll blir det prisutdelning och regattamiddag i Sandhamn och i princip hela teamet kommer vara där och det blir nog en kul upplevelse!

Bilder från KSSS.

Text: Anders Björk (som startat och slutfört alla de tre blåsiga Gotland Runt 1993, 2019 och 2023)

Gotland Runt start imorgon

Gotland Runt startar imorgon och prognoserna innehåller väldigt mycket vind så det ser ut att bli ett ganska snabbt och blött race. Vi startar i klassen ORCi B kl 12:20 och KSSS har sändning från starten. Följ oss gärna under racet och på KSSS Gotland Runt sida kan man läsa mer om hur man följer oss.