Mattson takes Swedish J/70 Nationals by a whisker

J/70 International Swedish Championship © j70ica.org

Twenty-nine boats from across Scandinavia (Sweden, Finland, Norway) participated in the J/70 International Swedish Championship, hosted by Halmstad Segelsallskap.

The racing was fast and furious and produced a lot of close racing, with every team in the top five having to discard huge double-digit finishes after seven races and not one team counted all top ten scores!

Last year's Scandinavian Champion, Oscar Lundqvist, crewed for his brother and friends on HILDA. Their team consisted of Jacob Lundqvist, Erik Skoting, Pelle Vickberg, and Oliver Österberg. After missing an opportunity to win the regatta for the second straight year in a row by posting a disastrous last race 20th, Oscar commented on why they enjoy racing J/70s in Europe, "I do not think there is any class in the Nordic countries that can collect an even start-up field where all participants are well placed to win. We have also shown that the boat can sail at all ages, young and old. From our side we would have liked to see more young teams on the track. With a little will and hard work you can get a boat and get started with good conditions. When we were in Denmark recently, about half the field consisted of young crews, which was encouraging. Hopefully, this may happen here at home in Sweden as well, and in view of all the clubs that are now around the country, the conditions have never been better. Just jumping into a boat and driving is easy!"

After the first day's four races, Mikael Lindqvist's Dynamant Racing from KSSS was the leader with a 14-1-2-16! Second was Martin Fridh's ISBAR crew (Ylva Hofvander Trulsson, Jakob Reuterskold, Jan-Erik Jonsson) with an equally scary tally of 16-6-7-2! Then, even more eye-opening was the third place scores for Daniel Mattson's Finish crew from Ålandske Segelsällskapet (Mathias Dahlman, Johan Nystrom, Staffan Lindberg), with an eye-popping 2-14-15-1!

Sunday's three races produced even more extraordinary roller-coaster rides for everyone in the top ten. The only boat to avoid a double-digit score was the ultimate regatta winner- Mattson's FIN 673, posted a blistering record of 7-1-2 for a total score of 27 pts net. The Swedish Lundqvist brothers on HILDA started the day with a 2-2 and were leading the regatta going into the final race. However, an unfortunate "digger" of a last race- a 20th- became their discard and they had to settle for the silver with 37 pts net. Coming on strong in the last two races with a 4-3 was Henrik Lundberg's Finish crew on ALMACO, finishing with 41 pts net.

Rounding out the top five were Anders Kemmler's Swedish crew on Dynamant Racing in 4th and Jan Nilsson's hometown Swedish crew on NN in 5th. The top Norwegian boat was Eivind Astrup's Norwegian Steam in 15th place.

A big "Thank You" to everyone in the HASS club that hosted and ran a great regatta! From the kitchen, to the secretary, and to the volunteers on the race track. Amazingly good work everyone!