KSSS dominates Nordic J/70 Championship at Royal Swedish Yacht Club

2018 Nordic J/70 Championship © KSSS

Spectacular sailing conditions greeted the sailors participating in the 2018 Nordic J/70 Championship, hosted by the Royal Swedish YC (KSSS) off Sandhamn, Sweden. In fact, the twenty-two teams were greeted by a little too much awesome weather conditions, with racing having to be canceled on Saturday due to sunny skies, warm air, and 25-35 kt winds! In the end, Oscar Lundqvist's crew on Hilda (Jacob Lundqvist, Erik & Oskar Skoting, & Oliver Österberg) counted four bullets and two deuces to crush their Scandinavian competitors, finishing with just 8 pts net!

The first day was three races take place in nearly ideal conditions. Bright sun, stable southern winds of 7 kts increasing to 16 kts by the afternoon, made for fun, challenging racing as the J/70s transitioned through the three downwind modes (VMG displacement, wing-on-wing, to full-on planing). After the three races, it was pretty clear which team had the best handle on those three modes, with Lundqvist's Hilda crew posting a 2-1-1 to lead at the completion of racing on Friday with only 4 pts. Sitting in second was Anders Kemmler's Dynamant Racing team (Björn Kemmler, Ulf Camitz, & Mikael Lindqvist) with a 1-3-2 for 6 pts and rounding out the top of the leaderboard was the Tom Hallberg's Finnish team on Revalence with a 3-2-10 for 15 pts.

Peter Åkerström, the KSSS PRO for the regatta, commented, "there were three tough, even races and no incidents. Fair and decisive sailing with ideal winds. Tomorrow, it seems to be worse with winds up to 20 m/s (25 kts-plus), according to weather reports. We'll see how the conditions are, at least we secured ourselves a good start to the regatta by running three races today!"

On the second day, the weather forecasts came true. While a few teams ventured forth to "test" the conditions, along with a few choice "crashes" in the 25-30+ kt winds, racing was canceled for the day on the Rödkubbsfjärden, despite the spectacular sunny weather.

The finale on the third day was intensive, with no less than four races being run from morning to afternoon. Again, it was four double windward-leeward races on the starting line north of Svängen.

KSSS PRO- Peter Åkerström- was pleased with how the sailors were doing, commenting that "although many boats were sailing well, it blew 10-12 m/s (15-23 kts) out there, the tough conditions proved to be a challenge for some of the less experienced crews. Nevertheless, it was fair sailing and great, windy conditions with stable winds- what else can you ask for?! In total, we were happy to run seven races over the two racing days, that feels good!"

Reveling in those conditions were the KSSS teams, making a clean sweep of the podium. Winning was Lundqvist's crew on Hilda, followed by Kemmler's Dynamant Racing in second. Climbing fast up the leaderboard on the last day was Patrik Forsgren's team on Team Pro4U (Sandra Sandqvist, Anders Mårtensson, Rebecka Harding, & Kenneth Edvardsson); posting a 1-7-2-1 to finish with 21 pts total and the bronze.

The balance of the top five was determined by a tie-breaker on 29 pts each, with Fabian Bergman's Team Lulu taking 4th place on the countback over John Hedberg's Emelie.

More Nordic J/70 Championship sailing information can be found here.