On Thursday August 27th 2015 the Stockholm Archipelago Raid started. At the start 24 Formula 18 catamarans showed up for their 4-day raid of sailing through the Swedish Archipelago. In sunny conditions the fleet left the KSSS yacht club in Saltsjöbaden (Stockholm) to go for their first stop on Finnhamn. After lunch the fleet continued their raid to the final destination of the day: Fejan. After day 1 Mathias Söderström and Thomas Westergren are the leaders followed by Carolijn Brouwer and Darren Bundock in 2nd position. Thomas Ekefalk and Rasmus Rosengren are third.
“It’s heavier than sailing the Volvo Ocean Race. Ok, it’s been a while since I’ve been on a F18, but true… it was hard work!” says Carolijn Brouwer. “It should be a relaxing holiday, not hard work…. I do less on an Americas Cup boat“, adds Darren Bundock with a smile. And they’re right, it wasn’t easy at all today. The wind started building in the afternoon and had some nice surprises for the cat sailors. When they came form behind some islands the breeze builded up to 25-30 knots in no time. Not easy at all when you’re already doing 15 knots boatspeed and not expecting that to happen.
Also Lars Linder (F18 Chairman Sweden) had a very good day: “It was an awesome day! I think some new speed records were set today. As we went from Finnhamn to Fejan, a distance of 20 NM, in just over 1 hour with an average speed of 17 knots…. amazing! After a sauna everybody enjoyed a good ‘Swedish BBQ’ and shared stories of today. We all look forward to tomorrow to another day of strong winds and good sailing.”
Results after day 1:
| Sail Number | Crew | Leg 1 | Leg 2 | day one results | |||
| swe 81 | mathias s + thomas w | 1 | 28 | 1 | 28 | 56 | 1 |
| aus 888 | carolijn b + darren b | 3 | 26 | 2 | 27 | 53 | 2 |
| swe 7 | thomas e + rasmus r | 2 | 27 | 8 | 21 | 48 | 3 |
| swe 768 | henrik a + mathias a | 5 | 24 | 7 | 22 | 46 | 4 |
| swe 777 | petter k + malcolm h | 7 | 22 | 5 | 24 | 46 | 5 |
| gbr 501 | william s +freddie w | 4 | 25 | 9 | 20 | 45 | 6 |
| sui 10 | andreas l + martin j | 13 | 16 | 3 | 26 | 42 | 7 |
| ned 111 | bas p + pieter o | 6 | 23 | 12 | 17 | 40 | 8 |
| ger 170 | korbinian k + sebastian l | 12 | 17 | 10 | 19 | 36 | 9 |
| swe 73 | lars l + erik b | 8 | 21 | 15 | 14 | 35 | 10 |
| swe 757 | anders d +henrik p | 11 | 18 | 13 | 16 | 34 | 11 |
| swe 2 | leff d + | 9 | 20 | 16 | 13 | 33 | 12 |
| swe 717 | gregory s + marcus p | 15 | 14 | 11 | 18 | 32 | 13 |
| swe 11 | oscar c + arvid c | 20 | 9 | 6 | 23 | 32 | 14 |
| gbr 4 | john e + mikael j | 10 | 19 | 20 | 9 | 28 | 15 |
| swe 40 | niklas b + oscar w | 19 | 10 | 14 | 15 | 25 | 16 |
| swe 70 | fredrik k + niklas n | dnf | 2 | 4 | 25 | 27 | 17 |
| swe 336 | claes r + lasse o | 16 | 13 | 18 | 11 | 24 | 18 |
| swe 294 | lea a + anders a | 18 | 11 | 17 | 12 | 23 | 19 |
| swe 21 | magnus l + patrik n | 14 | 15 | dnf | 2 | 17 | 20 |
| swe 924 | max o + janis m | 21 | 8 | 21 | 8 | 16 | 21 |
| swe 66 | ola p + tommy s | 17 | 12 | dnf | 2 | 14 | 22 |
| swe 2266 | johan a + andreas h | dnf | 2 | 19 | 10 | 12 | 23 |
Download the results here. Follow the event on the Facebook event page. For more information about the event, check the Stockhom Archipelago Raid website.