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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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.

18 skippers (13 SWE, 4 FIN, 1 NOR) gathered in Viggbyholm, maybe 20 min by car north of Stockholm, to sail in the last swedish IOM ranking event of the year. Although not warm, + 2 C, the day was otherwise splendid with sunshine and light no1 breeze along the sailing area. 9 races were completed with everyone sailing in the same heat.

Timo Syren is seen here sporting the latest (?) in head-wear fashion. Timo became the unchallenged rowing-champion of the day when he realized, about two secodns too late, that he had put his boat in the water with the electronics swithced off ! He set off in a small inflatable dinghy to try to catch his italiko which seemed to sail goose-winged dead straight out to sea, always out of reach. After what must have been more than 30 min of rowing the boat was recovered and Timo was smiling again...

Per Svanberg (SWE16) sprinted off to an early lead by stringing together a number of bullets in the beginning of the regatta. By the afternoon myself and Jimmy Hellberg (SWE17) were beginning to catch up but in the end it was not enough... I was happy with having the lowest throw-out and finishing a respectabne 2nd.

Per scored a net of 21 points from 8 races (2.6/race) which qualifies as good racing in my book ! (I'm looking and comparing with my "closeness of competition" graph)

See also:

• report and results at www.srss.se

If anyone has some sailing pictures I'd be happy to publish them here !

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