Line honours to Furiosa and Beatrice Aurore in the ÅF Offshore Race
by Fabian Bengtsson 3 Jul 2018 09:24 BST
3 July 2018
Furiosa passing the finish line in Sandhamn at 04.50 AM © Henrik Tryg
The Estonian 50-footer Furiosa, skippered by Ralf Relander, was first yacth racing around Gotland to cross the finish line in Sandhamn at 04.50 AM. The winner of the race will be decided when we know the result of the rest of the fleet on corrected time.
Beatrice Aurore, a classic yacht built in 1920 took the line honours in the Classics class, passing the finish line at 04.43 AM. The elapsed time around the track for Beatrice Aurore was 39:23:02 – 46:21:17 on corrected time.
After the start in Stockholm on Sunday, Furiosa found good speed escaping the archipelago and reaching open water heading south to Gotland on Sunday night. They passed Hoburgen, the southern tip of Gotland at 04.30 AM Monday morning.
The Estonian team then continued to lead the fleet returning north upwind and passed the finish line in Sandhamn at 04.50 Tuesday morning. "It feels really good to take the line honours and we hope our time can take us all the way to overall victory in the race", said Ralf Relander, Skipper of Furiosa.
"It has been a great race has with many different stages. The part in the archipelago was really exciting and Sunday night it was a lot of wind, it felt like driving a submarine and we peaked at 28 knots. Over the night the wind died out and we were almost standing still but we get more breeze the last couple of miles and that pushed us over the line".
The elapsed time around the track for Furiosa was 39:50:25 – 57:19:48 on corrected time.
It's been a challenging edition of ÅF Offshore Race. The first 24 hours of the race saw tough conditions with winds over 25 knots and a challenging sea state. At midday on Monday, 42 teams had abandoned racing. Carbon Tiger, a 33-foot trimaran capsized Sunday evening and an emergency helicopter rescued the four-man crew. The crew were unharmed.