Contenders poised for Eurocard Round Gotland Race

by Bob Fisher on 2 Jul 2005 At 12 noon, Sun¬day, July 3rd, the starting gun will be fired for this year’s edition of one of the largest offshore races in the world – the Eurocard Round Gotland Race 2005.

The starting line is between the Revenge¬grundet lighthouse and the buoy Svängen, ap-proximately 3 nautical miles from Sandhamn. The first start will commence 1200 hrs and in the following order;

12:00 IMS EM/SM

12:15 IMS 1 och IMS 2

12:30 ORC Club 1 och J/105

12:45 ORC Club 2 och X-99

13:00 ORC Grand Open

13:15 Multihull

There are two longer and slightly different courses this year. The different courses separate the field to create a more varied race, from Almagrundet via Gustaf Dahlén lighthouse, then Salvorev down to Hobur¬gen, Knolls Grund and Visby.

Here the two courses divide; the shorter (Bravo 362 nm) heading for Almagrundet lighthouse and on to the finish line at Skanskobb. The longer course (Alfa 432 nm) heads after Visby to Svenska Björn and Almagrundet lighthouse to the finish line at Skanskobb.

There will be an ‘Overall Winner,’ the prize awarded to the best yacht under IMS.

This year, KSSS will also hold the IMS European Championship and those participating in this event will compete in their own class. As KSSS is celebrating its 175th Anniversary, there is also a special course for veteran boats from Sandhamn to Visby and back, starting on Saturday.

Of the 238 yachts signed up for the race, a number include international participants, of which the majority, as usual, come from neighbour¬ing Finland. Sailors from 10 countries will compete in this year’s Eurocard Round Gotland Race.

The trimarans sailing the Nokia Oops Cup in the Nordic capitals, the Faerder Race (Norway) and around Zealand (Denmark), have two more countries to visit after Sweden and Sand-hamn and they are Poland (Gdansk) and Russia (St. Petersburg).

Last year’s winner of the Cup, Academy, with Knut Frostad of Norway, is back in Sandhamn. The other five are the 2003 Oops Cup winner and the fastest boat in Eurocard Gotland Runt last year, Klas Nylöf’s HiQ; Magnus Olsson’s Nokia; TietoEnator skip¬pered by Thomas Jo-hanson, the 2000 Olympic Champion of the 49er class, from Finland; and Bonduelle from Poland.

The leader of the Cup is Stena Sovcomflot which is a newly formed team participating in Nokia Oops Cup for the first time. Stena Sovcomflot is a joint operation of Sweden and Rus-sia, skippered by Bruno Peyron and with Roger Nilson as navigator.

Most people know that the yacht that crosses the finish line first rarely wins the Round Got-land Race. Sailing has a handicap system. The winning yacht is de¬termined on the basis of its calculated sailing time and taking the yacht’s size and other factors into account.

While they race separately, the single-hulled yachts and trimarans al¬ways ‘fight to the finish’ to become the first to cross the finish line at Skanskobb in Sandhamn.

Most participants in the Eurocard Round Gotland Race are actually families; colleagues from work and groups of friends, both men and women. There are always a few yachts with all-women crews and sailing is one of the few sports in which men and women compete on equal terms. This delightful mixture of sailing yachts and crews makes the Round Gotland Race the biggest and most exciting sailing challenge of the year.

The Round Gotland Race has been sailed since 1937, but not every year. There was no race between 1939 and 1950.

Several different courses have been used and yachts have sailed both clockwise and counter-clockwise, with the start and finish alternating between Visby, on Gotland, and Sand-hamn. However, the race has started and finished in Sandhamn since 1963 and the yachts always sail clockwise around the course. The first Round Gotland Race was won by Sven Salén’s yacht, Havsörnen.

The Royal Swedish Yacht Club (Kungl Sven¬ska Segelsällskapet, KSSS) is the largest and oldest sailing club in Sweden. Founded in 1830, and with more than 6,000 members, KSSS is an active and leading yachting club to¬day. The club’s activities include racing, training, education, group sailing and a variety of club activities. KSSS also oper¬ates its own harbour activities in Salts¬jöbaden and Sandhamn.

The club conducts intensive sail training programmes for young people and other types of training activities in Saltsjöbaden and Djursholm in Stockholm, and in Sand¬hamn. Most KSSS races take place on Baggensfjärden in Saltsjöbaden.

From the club’s facilities in Sandhamn, and on the island of Lökholmen, KSSS ar¬ranges sail-ing competitions during the summer, with the Eurocard Round Gotland Race being the larg-est in terms of the number of yachts and par¬ticipants.

Follow the race at: www.ksss.se or www.gotlandrunt.se