The Swedish Championship last weekend was a tight fight untill the last race where both the battle for Gold was settled, as well as the fight for the Bronze. The conditions were fairly good the first day and perfect with winds of 15-20 knots the second day.
During the first day the super talented Ida Svensson (19) and raid-winning crew Tomas Westergren (29) did everything right and won all 4 races and seemed unbeatable. In the strong winds of day two however, Leff Dahl and Roger Bodèn won the first races and closed in on the leaders. In the 8th race team Svensson/Westergren had an unfortunate sail break down and Dahl/Bodèn had closed in to the same points. In the last race the winners took it all: Dahl/Bodèn were the winners. The battle for Bronze was equally tight with Karlsson/Nordblom and Linder/Brunnberg on the same point before the last race. Linder/Brunnberg won that race in a battle until the finish line and secured the Bronze.
This year the Championship attracted 23 teams, more than double compared to last year. Worth mentionning is also that 8 of these have sailed F18 less than two years and that the average age is going down for the first time in years, the youngest team being the Boestad brothers aged 18 and 14. Used good F18 boats chance owners quickly and it looks like more sailors have discovered the class and want a test drive before buying. Many of these new F18-sailors mention the Stockholm Archipelago Raid as an inspiration and goal for their aspirations.
More pictures can be found here.
Text: Lars Linder
Photo credits: Lotta Ridelberg