In July it was announced that Baltic 500, the Dark Edition, would take place on the first week of October.
I could neither transfer Veloce to Strande, Germany, nor find “crew” able to take a week off so late in the season. That’s when I figured that Niclas Holmberg, who regularly participates in distance races single and doublehanded such as Vegvisir or Silverrudder, had already registered Vida, his Elan 350, and was looking for a co-skipper.
I jumped at the opportunity and once an agreement at home was reached, off we went.
Vida was harboured in Svendborg, Denmark. A perfect opportunity to sail her to Germany. At least once before the Baltic 500 race.
We left Svendborg in the early evening and sailed through the night. Nothing remarkable, just smooth sailing. Just as it should be.
Entering the harbour at Strande was like for a kid entering a candy shop. I cannot recall seeing any boat that was not a sailboat. And what sailboats! From large fine cruisers to the sportiest racer. And so much carbon fibre!
The weather was fine, but forecasts showed a low pressure moving eastward North of us, bringing a lot of wind and instability along its cold fronts. It didn’t look good with expected average winds between 25 and 35 knots and gusts between 45 and 50 knots and a first leg to windward. Additionally, a new weather system with even worse conditions was approaching and we were worried that it would hit us before the race was completed.
On day -1, just before the shippers’ briefing, the harbour was hit by a small tornado, which damaged some yachts and a restaurant. Not the best happening to cheer us up.
The course was changed to a route along the German coast, almost all the way to Poland and back, around 380NM, to avoid the worst weather. We went to sleep telling ourselves that it would be fine. In the morning however, after a night of raging winds at harbour, we made the tough call not to start. We watched the start from the beach and enjoyed a day with other fellow sailors.
The following day, just after lunch we had a window of about 36 hours to get home, between gales.
What a blast! The route was around 210NM. All downwind, with winds between 20 and 30kn and large following sees. Especially across the Kattegat sea, where high breaking waves hit us on the quarters and we surfed up to 15kn, with a max speed of 16.3kn.
The whole trip took us only 25 hours and was a thrill all the way!
Thanks Niclas for the opportunity to close the season with such a memorable sail journey and for hosting me aboard Vida for a week!
Thanks Peter “Blur” Gustafsson (blur.se) who was our on-shore navigator, helping us out with routeing and strategy, even though there was no race for us.
Congratulations to Leif Jägerbrand and Anna Drougge aboard the FIgaro 3 “Sunkini” who won it all: 1st in class, 1st in mixed and 1st overall.
