Archipelago Raid - Sailing to the Finish

Rödhamn, Åland - With the end nearly in sight, the 2-person sailing teams have been working hard to make the Archipelago Raid their own. The 18 foot catamarans have been zig-zagging through the thousands of rocks and islands of the archipelago, and have experienced everything from blistering fast reaches to bobbing about in dead calm. In this event that rewards navigation, sailing and endurance, a tight fleet shows that the competition is serious, and the smiles show it's been seriously fun.

Team BT, consisting of Dame Ellen MacArthur and Greg Homann, had to stop to repair a sail yesterday and still managed to come back to finish 14th for the leg. Said Ellen: “We are really enjoying the race. There are a lot of tactics involved, which is interesting. We are not used to sailing this type of boat and we are learning a lot. And we are laughing a lot. We are tired but still laughing, which is giving us energy,”

The ninth leg of the race was cancelled this morning for lack of wind, and the boats towed to the checkpoint. Leg 10 is currently under way, and the fleet is seeing adequate breezes for active sailing. As of the last report, the teams were sailing to the island of Sandhamn in 6-10 knots of wind, and keeping a good pace.

Team Kalix remains in the lead. Said skipper Eric Proust: “We have had great conditions, it is a great race! There are some really interesting teams in the race; Team Thule is very good at navigating, RBSC Huysman is very fast upwind and X-Leisure is a bomb all the time!”

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 18th of June, the Archipelago Raid will finish in the city of Stockholm in Sweden.

-- Archipelago Raid Current Rankings --

Latest update: Tuesday June 17th

1. Team Kalix (Proust/Motteau)
2. Team Thule (Strandberg/Örtendahl)
3. X-Leisure (Sunnucks/Farren)
4. Team Blue Oceans(Humphreys/Crawford)
5. RBSC - Huysman (Demesmaeker/Proot)
6. Team Garmin (Bäck/Morin)
7. One Design Center (Hållsten/Hanes)
8. SWE 558 (Persson/Westergren)
9. BT (MacArthur/Homann)
10. Dare 2 (Andre/Vercio)
11. Sundvalls Bygg AB (Ekman/Tempelman)
12. N-Group (Nieminen/ Nieminen
13. HH Marin (Ekefalk/Söder)
14. GB Glace (Almquist/Berg)
15. Cottonfield (Romppanen/Kiiski)
16. Team GUL Sweden (Barkelius/Gattberg)
17. ÅBIT (Haals/Barck)
18. Stelacon (Linder/Petersson)
19. First hotels (Aasberg/Ask)
20. Berotec (Rosenquist/Willemse)
RETIRED Team NCC (Berensson/Wadstein)
RETIRED Klinger (Sundström/Lagerqvist)

READ MORE ABOUT THE ARCHIPELAGO RAID.

- BH / Photos by Th. Martinez