SRSS hosted this year’s IOM Nordic Championships in Saltsjöbaden, Stockholm. A new record was set when 37 skippers (19 SWE, 10 NOR, 4 DEN, 4 FIN) showed up! A good thing, since the nordic events are now growing to be even more relevant practice for large championships like Euros and Worlds.

Saturday started out grey with no2 rig, and we got some rain in the middle of the day with everyone changing up to no1 rig for the afternoon. Sunday was dry with a bit of sunshine and no2 rig the whole day. 17 races were completed with five different A-heat winners. I threw away at least one good chance of my own when the jibsheet got stuck on a badly designed mast-ram when I was rounding the last leeward mark with a good lead towards the end of Saturday…

A lot of new boats: Torvald Klem (NOR) sailed a Jeff Byerley Extreme into a comfortable win. Second place Sören Andresen (DEN) has a new wooden boat with modified front sections. I sailed the new Noux Mk2, but was pushed back from my usual third into fourth place by one J Hellberg (SWE), who with the help of two boats and three discards took third. I’m taking comfort in that I had the second lowest throw-outs after Torvald, which in the long run is a Good Thing. Fifth was Gunnar Karslen with a not-so-new TS-2, showing that the ca. 1992 designed TS-2 with original fin and rudder is still a good boat.

I’ve now found a mast position on the Noux which results in good balance upwind, but I seemed to loose on the runs. I’ve done this by moving the mast forward at deck-level, so this also increases aft mast rake. Perhaps I should look for the same balance, but with a more upright mast to balance upwind and downwind speed?

Pictures here, here, and here. Results from SRSS’s site.

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13 skippers (8 FIN, 4 SWE, 1 NOR) competed in race 2 of the Scandinavian Cup 2007 (*) organized by TPS in Turku, Finland during the weekend of 1st and 2nd of September 2007.

Saturday started dramatically with a thunderstorm interrupting race 1, and most boats changing down to no2 rig for the rest of the day. A nice wind direction enabled a long course with skippers being able to walk 1/3 to 1/2 of the course up and down along the pier. 12 races were completed. Saturday was completed with an event dinner with our race-officer Harri Korpela as chief chef.

Sunday began with more wind and some risk for rain. Most skippers started out with no2 rig, but some more or less successful trials were made with no1 rig throughout the day. 12 races were completed.

The winner, Torvald Klem from Norway, sailed the most consistently and only let about six heat-wins slip by. He sailed a new Extreme design from Jeff Byerley/Australia. Only the second time in no2-rig conditions for this boat. Second place Olle Martonen sails a home-built wood/glassfiber TripleCrown, while third place Timo Syren used a SailsETC Italiko, also taking home the Finnish Class Champion title.

A few new boats were also seen on the race-course. Anders Wallin and Eero Laurila sailed Noux Mk2 designs with still a bit of room for improvement on the trimming and manouverability side. A swedish prototype of the Peter Norlin designed IOM (onemeterfun.se) also competed in its first international event.

Results here.

(*) for some good reason these races are now called “Scandinavian”, a word that is about double in length, and geographically incorrect, compared to “Nordic”.

Arriving in Oslo on 17. May meant that the whole of Norway was celebrating the constitution day!

Dancing in the streets. Most people wore traditional Norwegian outfits.

Traffic lights Norwegian style: If one red man is good for you then two must be about 100% better still!

The race was hosted by Norsk Modellseilforening. Above their clubhouse on the Malmoya island just 10 minutes outside the centre of Oslo. The club was founded in 1904, and it shows in the historic yachts and photographs inside the club. Now they have about 30 members with weekly races gathering 10-15 boats I understand.

As my new Noux is not ready yet, I sailed FIN-26, the Italiko I had at the Vancouver Worlds (thanks to Lasse K for lending me his boat!). I was struggling to find balance on the beat with the no1 and no2 rigs on the first racing day, and a good start with placings of 3-5-4-4 dwindled into 7-7-7-8 (including my two throw-outs) by the end of the day as the mind tries to compensate for lack in boatspeed with increasingly radical tactical decisions…

Speed on the second day with the no3 rig was much better and I was able to keep up with the usual suspects that have dominated these races over the past years (that’s Torvald K from Norway and Sören A from Denmark). I might be imagining things, but I felt that the Italiko was very easy to manoeuvre and keep still on the starting line, perhaps due to its large area keel. A solid start and a good first rounding is vital in radio-sailing, and as these two bits of the puzzle came together I managed 2-3-2-4-3-4 on the second day (just like the first day should have been!). Still there were a boat or two passing me on the long beat because the trim of the boat was not exactly right, but tactically I’m very satisfied with the 2nd day’s racing.

Race officer Ole-Peder Björsom used this countdown system by Main Link Systems together with a speaker (below). It worked very well and provided enough volume even in the no3-rig conditions.

The first day of racing was concluded with a shrimp-based dinner for all participants in the clubhouse.

These two pictures were taken just after racing finished on the second day and show the steady 13-15 m/s winds with gusts higher still. A brave wind-surfer was seen resting for about 10min on the jetty before continuing his blast across the fjord.

Now it’s clear why the Swedes weren’t present: they’re busy cnc-milling plugs and testing their latest design in the bath-tub!

The results and a race report are available at iom-nordic.org.

I don’t have any sailing pictures, but I’d like to publish some here especially from the 2nd day. So if anyone has some good action photos let me know.

The remaining two races in this series are:

• Scandinavian IOM Cup Race 2, Turku, Finland, 1-2 September 2007
• Scandinavian IOM Cup Race 3, Sweden, 29-30 September 2007

Update 2007May23: Olle Martonen sent me two sailing pictures (click the pics for hi-res versions):

If you look real hard behind the bow/jib of NOR-59 you can see a bit of blue – that’s me!

This is probably not the same start as the one above. Note however how the (consistent?) skippers prefer a similar position on the line. The yellow (47) and black (09) boats are close to the starboard flag, the red (59) and blue (26) are in the middle of the line.

Nothing new under the sun when it comes to the results, Torvald Klem won, 2 points in front of Sören Andresen, and myself third, 2 points after Sören.

No pictures from this event as Saturday was too wet for photography and I tried my best to concetrate on the sailing on Sunday… If anyone has photos, please send me them and I’ll gladly post them!

Results and pictures are likely to appear on www.iom-nordic.org in a few days.

This time we were in Herslev, just to the other side of Roskilde from last years regatta.

Practice on Friday already gave an indication of what was to come – it wasn’t possible to sail more than one leg of the course before catching weed which effectively slowed down the boat. On Saturday five races were completed in warm summerwheater and light no1 rig before the organizers called it a day and hoped for less weed on Sunday.

Sometimes, the rescue boat needs to be rescued…

On Sunday four more races were completed in very light wind with maybe a bit less weed problems.

Results and pictures on www.iom-nordic.org

Håkan Grönvall was the only Swedish competitor and sailed this updated Sphincter design.

Two German skippers also took part. Michael Scharmers homebuilt boats are always interesting, here are a few details of Michaels latest: “Pimp my boat”. Note screw-top RC-pot on the foredeck and very deep rudder (partly hidden behind mainboom).

Homebuilt wooden masts are glued together from three pieces, also with a join lengthwise since the raw material is about 1000 mm long. Michael builds the forward pre-bend he wants into the mast when they are glued together.

Two tricks to position the tack of the jib closer to the centerline of the boat. On the left we see the jib attached to the hull through a transverse slit that allows the swivel point to move sideways at sufficient wind pressure. To the right a new clew fitting which allows the clew to move outboard from the boom – the same effective sheeting angle is achieved at a smaller jib boom angle, thus positioning the tack less to windward.

Homemade mainboom fitting. Michael now uses an extra deck-piece over the cockpit, similar to the tapes seen on the Disco design in Vancouver, to minimize the amount of water that accumulates in the cockpit.

A geared servo acts as an arm-winch !

To the left Michael Scharmers way of attaching the shrouds. A simple and effective way to attach fixed-length stays. To the right another example of a homemade ball-raced gooseneck, this one from Morten Tonnesens glassfiber Laerke. Note also bottlescrews anodized green and red for starboard/port.

Two more details: A top fitting solution which completely omits the uppermost loop around the mast, from Gunnar Karlsen’s TS-2. Right: a way of using a round arrowshaft mainboom with the Sails ETC gooseneck fitting.

Afterwards we visited the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum.

This is a site where several old viking ships have been found. The originals (above) are stored inside the museum, and an active study of viking ships and building/sailing techniques has resulted in many modern day replicas being built and sailed.

The researchers at the museum study how building tools and techniques (a model boat to the right) have changed during the period when the vikings were active, about 1000 to 1300 AD if I understood correctly.

You can even take a real Viking rowing or sailing trip here !

A modern day replica of ‘Roar Ege’ (which probably inspired the Stollery designed Marblehead Roar Edge) shows the Viking way of ballasting the boat: Throw in a suitable amount of stones in the middle !

Original wooden parts found below or just to the side of the museum – together with a steel frame which indicates the missing parts and the full size of the ship.

21 participants from the four nordic countries(4 DEN, 4 NOR, 1 SWE, 12 FIN) gathered in Helsinki for Friday-Saturday to sail for the 2006 IOM Nordic Championship.
We had a steady no2 rig breeze during Friday and completed 7 races in two heats. Torvald Klem sprinted off into a clear lead on the first day, while Sören Andresen, Brian Nielsen, Lars Andresen, and myself had a close fight for places 2-5.

Lighter wind on Saturday meant all races were completed with no1 rig. As the fleetsize had shrunk to 18 boats everyone sailed in one heat and we completed 11 more races to land on a total of 18 races.

Final Results at www.iom-nordic.org

The leading boats liking the port end of the start line…

The breakwater works as an elevated and extended control area which allows for walking up and down the course with your boat. The weather was kind to us, and we had the wind from a close to ideal direction on both days. Better visibility and walking with your boat really reduces the number of incidents I think.

Thew newly constructed heat-board. A wooden frame holds together two magnetic boards (from clasohlson). The whole thing folds together for transport. We used a windward-leeward course with an offset mark to windward and a gate to leeward. This seemed to work well, although setting the gate so that boats spread evenly between the marks is a challenge for the race committee.

17 races with two discards were completed using two heats and the HMS system.
Complete results in PDF format.

Torvald (NOR, Cockatoo), Sören (DEN, Sirius 10) and Anders (FIN, Cockatoo) who had been practicing at the IOM Worlds just a few weeks ago under the Queensland sun found their way into the top three:

Some close-up’s of the mast bend that some of my competitors were using:

Until next year…

See also

• Regatta report at www.iom-nordic.org

Top ten results, 17 races with 2 discards, 28 competitors:
1. Soren Andresen, DEN
2. Anders Wallin, FIN
3. Ulrik Staahlros, DEN
4. Torvald Klem, NOR
5. Lars Andresen, DEN
6. Jorgen Marquardsen, DEN
7. Timo Syren, FIN
8. Tom Christensen, DEN
9. Brian Nielsen, DEN
10. Sven Toftegaard, DEN

Sören Andresen with his homebuilt and designed wooden boat.

The TS-2 that was 3rd.

Torvald Klem(NOR, Cockatoo) was (again!, he has won numerous Marblehead Nordic Championships) the most consistent collecting only 1.-4. places during the whole regatta. Sören Andresen (DEN, own wooden design), Gunnar Karlsen (NOR, TS-2) and Anders Wallin (FIN, Cockatoo) had a very close fight for the following places with only one point separating the trio at midday sunday. In the end Sören was second, Gunnar third, and I managed fourth…

The organizers had several alternative venues but we ended up sailing in the very heart of the city in the small-boat harbor. The wind was fairly unpredictable as it came round and over high mountains and buildings.