Stockholm Archipelago Raid
Sailing orienteering, adventure and high level racing between the 36, 000 islands of the Stockholm archipelago!
2016 Stockholm Archipelago Raid
The Stockholm Archipelago Raid took place from the 25th to the 28th of August 2016 and is the most famous catamaran orienteering sailing adventure in the world! It’s physically and mentally tough and requires great boat handling and navigation skills to even finish, let alone win! 26 teams, 8 women and 44 men, from all around the World participated in this year’s edition, including defending F18 World Champion Gunnar Larsen with Lisa Larsen-Westerhof.
The Stockholm Archipelago Raid is a mix of sport, nature and adventure in the perfect F18-playground; the stunning Stockholm Archipelago. With its 36, 000 rocks, skerries and islands, it offers limitless possibilities for exceptional courses between the check points on islands, buoys, light houses or beaches. The two-person teams will navigate and sail their 5,5 m and 180 kg lightweight, over-powered Formula 18 catamarans at high speed to find check points.
The race starts and finishes in Saltsjöbaden, close to Stockholm City and there are three base camps along the way; Nässlingen, Arholma and Sandhamn/Lökholmen . The raid is made up of two legs per day with a lunch break in between. Before the start of each leg, the competitors receive the course of the next leg. In the Stockholm Archipelago Raid, the competitors are free to choose their route between checkpoints. Each day the fleet will sail between 50 and 100 nautical miles depending on the winds. It will be tight, intensive racing in the daytime and social activities, sauna and tasty food in good company before bed time.
The 2016 edition of the Stockholm Archipelago Raid sees 26 teams with participants from Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, USA and Sweden battling it out for glory and adventure! Six teams are mixed and one is all female, which is by far a record number of women in this incredibly demanding long-distance race. In the mixed class, the defending F18 World Champion Gunnar Larsen (NED) and Lisa Larsen (NED) had tough competition from Elke Delnooz and Jeroen van Leeuwen (NED), who placed 3rd overall in the 2016 European Championship. The 2015 Stockholm Archipelago Raid winning skipper Tomas Westergren and runner up crew Rasmus Rosengren (SWE) (Nacra 17 Olympic campaigner, Youth America’s Cup skipper) teamed up and took out first place this year. as well as F18 Nordic Champions Fredrik Karlsson and Niklas Nordblom (SWE) are also in the race to win and several other teams will make every minute of the 4 days of intense racing count.
Hartas Productions was on location in the Swedish Archipelago to film the incredible four day journey that was the 2016 Stockholm Archipelago Raid! See the video below: