Everyone says we are having a milder winter than normal but are you yet brave enough to sail the Baltic from Sweden to Russia? Climb aboard your Seacart for a 430nm race to the home of The Hermitage Museum
As the winds were turning left we had an easy start on max VMC all the way out to the corner. It only was a bit demanding to steer as the wind shifted and the bearing changed.
Eventually we reached the tackpoint and could head for the mark, SWE54 was in a good position.
At the mark WINSTON was in the lead, no surprise there, and now we faced a 3 route option. Inside the islands, between the islands or outside..? Inside took way to much time, a lot of bad angles. The route between the island could work but had no margins at all and some low winds and bad angles. The safest route was on the outside. As it turned out it was the fastest, and very much so. The boats on the other routes were left far behind.
The leaderboard as we tacked south in the pic above.
So far the plan worked well and the weather seemed to be stable, but then came a weather update that shook things up a bit. africa was north of the fleet and was not in a very good position but the new weather suddenly had a lefthand shift that put hin right back into the game. SWE54 just tacked when the weather came in and should probably have tacked back but we were supposed to head all the way down to the coast and was hoping for the righthander to compensate the loss. We came out of the tack ok and could reach for the last mark. The last leg in was all upwind and with a Seacart30 not that optimal. Trying to stay in the stronger breeze, on the right side in the shift and not to tack too often was a challenge. SWE54 caught up a little on africa and it looked really close on the finish but SWE54 had to settle for 3rd place. WINSTON 1st and africa 2nd, well done guys!
