Darren Bundock (AUS) and Jeroen Van Leeuwen (NED), on the C2 F18 2BSailing, winners of the Raid Revenge 2011. Image copyright Love Strandell/lovestrandell.com
by Jeroen Van Leeuwen
Picture this: Its blowing 20 knts. The spinnaker is up. I'm in the back footstrap. Spinaker sheet in my mouth, GPS in one hand, iPad in the other, Rock in front of you....... And the bloody helm wants to know if we go above or below......?????? And all this in the first 5 minutes of the race!!!
Over the weekend we participated in the Raid Revenge in the Swedish archipelago.
Such a great adventure!
A totally different race format to what we are used to.
Instead of just rounding some marks, we had to navigate our way along waypoints, islands, rocks and big channel markers and in the mean time you have to find your way through the shallow rocky area as fast as you can.
Racing in the Swedish archipelago pushes you to the maximum to find your quickest way! A way that gives you a choice between the shortest and the safest route. It all comes down to navigation, a aspect which was totally new to us course racers! But ..... We managed, with a simple GPS (for the bearing and distance) and an Ipad which gave us a overview of all the islands and rocks, (above and under the water surface) we survived without any damage!!
Apart from the racing, your sailing along one of the most beautiful spots on earth and the total serenity is just incredible!
Over night we stayed in some of those particular Scandinavian cabins, no running water and the toilet is a 1 sqre mtr shed built on top of a hole in the ground. Back to basics!
The organisation took care for the catering of some big Swedish dudes, a few Dutchies and Finnish, a Greek and an Aussie! After a 10 hour sail food becomes your nr 1 need. The big breakfasts, the BBQ and a beer or two were just what we needed!
According to the locals you have do the Scandinavian tradition: the sauna! With the thought of 40 naked Swedish guys in a hot wooden hut we passed on this one..
Conclusion: the Raid Revenge is a low cost challenging fun race for every F18 sailor!
We were treated to the great Swedish hospitality!
An experience I didn’t want to miss. See you next year Sweden!
Results
Plac/Båt nr leg 1 leg 2 leg 3 leg 4 leg 5 leg 6
1 AUS 888 1 1 11 1 1 1
Darren Bundock/Jeroen / Team C2 Totalt 15
2 SWE 66 3 5 2 2 2 2
Tomas Ekefalk/Magnus Lövdén / Skarpa Racing Totalt 15
3 SWE 49 2 6 1 5 3 5
Tomas Westergren/Kalle Blomberg Totalt 22
4 GRE 77 4 4 5 4 3 6
Iordanis Paschalidis/Gustav Dyrssen / Bushi Totalt 26
5 SWE 50 7 3 3 15 5 3
Jonas Frii/Johan Östendahl Totalt 36
6 SWE 888 16 2 4 3 9 4
Benajamin Rubin/Oscar Claesson Totalt 38
7 SWE 48 5 13 7 7 7 14
Petter Karlberg/Robert Albinsson / KARLBERG media AB Totalt 53
8 SWE 21 11 14 6 8 6 9
Leff Dahl/Magnus Nordström Totalt 54
9 SWE 244 8 10 9 11 5 16
Robert Söderberg/Anders Moe Totalt 59
10 SWE 26 12 12 8 6 DNF 7
John Bäck/Gustav Myrin / Team Garmin Totalt 64
11 SWE 924 14 7 15 13 4 12 Leopold Almstedt/Seifert Totalt 6
12 SWE 60 10 8 14 10 11 13 Fredrik Karlsson/Johan Lundqvist Totalt 6
13 Fin 1 6 15 17 14 12 11
Nora Eskola/Janne Riihelä/Outhouse Reggae Totalt 75
14 SWE 39 9 18 13 DNF 8 15
Lars Linder/Erik Brunnberg Totalt 83
15 SWE 28 18 20 20 9 15 8
Noah Donaldson/Marcus Lagerqvist Totalt 90
16 FIN 23 15 17 16 12 14 18
Dan von Weymarn/ Totalt 92
17 SWE 120 19 18 10 19 10 17
Mange Olsson/Juppa Olsson Totalt 93
18 SWE 148 DNF 10 18 17 17 10
Tom Gross/Magnus Castenfors Totalt 94
19 NED 36 17 16 12 18 13 19
Kees Wiesema/Gerard Nakken / Team Waterland Totalt 95
20 SWE 558 13 10 19 16 DNS DNS
Carl-Johan Söder/Per Westergren Totalt 98
21 SWE 43 20 21 21 DNF 16 20
Magnus Nyberg/Johan Fisher / Team Gardio Totalt 120
22 SWE 239 21 22 DNF DNF DNS 21
Peter Magnusson/Stefan Broddesson Totalt 131
Raid Revenge
