Gothenburg Lighthouses Solo Race 2020

Gothenburg Lighthouses Solo Race, in its 2020 version, was born about two weeks ago. As it happened, Vegvisir Race was suddenly cancelled and our planned long transport sail turned out as a non-sailing weekend. Unacceptable. And already negotiated at home. It couldn’t go to waste.

Not finding any regatta where we could participate, the answer became clear. If any 2 skippers other than myself were willing to race singlehanded, we had a race.

The idea behind Gothenburg Lighthouses Solo Race is simple. Easy access for yachts from the area surrounding Gothenburg. Reachable within the day. Long enough to create several opportunities throughout the race and whatever point of sail a boat likes most. Short enough to be intense and active all the way. A mixed of tight inshore with some interesting choices to be made and some longer stretches in open water.

Here the course.

Race day! After many windless races, finally the wind has come. As predicted, from the North East.

Now, this means flat water on the West Coast, which is 1) good for the autopilot sailing solo 2) bad as there is no chance to surf 3) gusty air. On the positive side, the forecasted rain never hit.

Start broad reaching on port tack. Peter’s Dominant “Gråå” to windward and Pelle’s Pogo “Calypso” just ahead of me. As we have very close handicap ratings they are a good reference.

Unable to move my jib sheet to the outboard, I was being left slowly behind.

Frustrating.

I succeded in keeping Vida behind though. And sailed by Piano. Not bad at all.

Rounding Buskär Knöte and jibing, I was finally on a downwind leg, which Veloce likes best. The anemometer showed wind between 18kts and 22kts with gusts backing over 20 degrees. Nothing my autpilot could cope with and therefore no colorful sails up. Damn it! Struggling to keep up with the leading pack. I was, however, able to move the jib sheet outboard, ready for the next reaching leg.

Now we are talking! I slowly started eating up distance from Gråå and gaining from the yachts behind. Vida overtook me at this point and Piano was again just beside on leeward.

Heeling at 25 degrees on a reach meant that there was no way I could point and sail close-hauled with the current setup. Changing to heavy jib is not really an option solo on a race this short. I took a reef just before rounding Trubaduren.

The next leg was great. I could sail fast and point high. Here I finally surpassed Gråå, left behind Piano and I was gaining on Calypso.

Many yachts decided to sail South of Styrsö and avoid the tight channel. Others sailed through the channel’s entrance further North. I decided to sail the shortest path, although the tightest and I got really close to Calypso and kept the X-99 behind. A sweaty 20 minutes, but worth it.

Rounding St Mosskullen, I saw Calypso getting away again. As the TWA increased I was paying the price of a reduced mainsail.

Downwind again after Rivö and reef shaken off. With TWA swinging between 120 and 100 degrees, I decided not to hoist a spinnaker until about 15 minutes from the finish line. When I finally did it, it was not dramatic at all and the autopilot had no problem at all. I am still pulling my hair for not hoisting it earlier.

Just before the finish line I had felt inspired to try a creative spinnaker douse and almost screwed up crossing the line with half the kite in the water.

Finished with a very nice 3rd place and super-satisfied with the result, behind Calypso in 2nd place, known to be fast, and La Chispa, the winner, sailed wonderfully well!

#	Boat Name	Boat type	Skipper	SRSs	Sailed time	Corrected time
1	La Chispa	Späckhuggare	Nils Ekholm	0.845	04:01:16	03:23:52
2	Calypso	Pogo 8.50	Pelle Lindell	0.956	03:38:00	03:28:24
3	Veloce	Sun Fast 32i	Federico Garofalo	0.946	03:42:44	03:30:42
4	Gråå	Dominant Race Special	Peter Gustafsson	0.936	03:49:10	03:34:30
6	Piano	X-99	Hugo Norell	0.986	03:40:35	03:37:30
5	Amber	Albin 79	Fabian Tillig	0.835	04:22:16	03:39:00
8	Forza	Faurby 396	Anders Bergvall	1.055	03:29:02	03:40:32
10	Aurora	Dehler 35	Mats Andersson	1.031	03:34:50	03:41:30
7	Spiff	Salona 33	Ulf Palm	0.989	03:44:13	03:41:45
9	Vida	Elan 350	Niclas Holmberg	1.006	03:40:45	03:42:04
12	Långben	Wasa 55	Bo Cederlöf	1.032	03:39:20	03:46:21
11	Matti	Späckhuggare	Ola Hjelmgren	0.831	04:34:20	03:47:58
13	SWE 933	Maxi 77	Berry Björlin	0.84	04:56:00	04:08:38
14	BlackPearl	Dehler34	Johan Holmqvist	0.928	04:42:01	04:21:43
15	Gwylan	Compis 28	Josefin Nederman	0.85	DNC	DNC
16	Lemon	IF	Joel Laestadius	0.806	DNC	DNC
17	Den Röde	Dehler 33	Hans Caspersson	0.999	DNC	DNC
18	Kaysa Björk	Hanse 400e	Bo Wastenson	1.053	DNF	DNF

With about 10 days from its conception to race day and relying on word of mouth on socials, a push on Blur thanks to Peter Gustafsson, and an appearance on Search Magazine, 18 solo sailors registered their yachts of which 15 showed up at the start, in spite of the forecast rain up to the previous day.

I am extremely pleased and thankful for the response, enthusiasm, interest and the many request for a Gothenburg Lighthouses Solo Race 2021.

A big thank you to everybody who helped to spread the word and well sailed to all who came!