PICS – ÅF OFFSHORE RACE 2018

We started the race as carefully as possible. First 30 miles out from Stockholm to open waters are super busy and narrow. Of course it was upwind, too. Had two reefs in main and the smallest foresail. Still it felt horrible to navigate this ocean racer in a crowded route with all kinds of boats around.

Besides the 240 fellow racers, the canal has a busy ferry traffic. The crew was totally sweaty and done when we finally made our way to safer waters. Then what happened was we started to take out reefs as most of the fellow participating boats started to reef down. Ariel II was finally in her true element. 

The race went just like the one before (Suursaari): Cookson 50 Furiosa and multihull Seacart 30 Cremefraes before us. Both from Estonia. 

Crew: Jari Selin, Janne Riihelä, Toni Kuusinen, Harri Juutinen

Unfortunately I had to rush to my flight to Beijing so right after crossing the finish line in Sandhamn we just had to make U-turn to Helsinki.

All photos: Reija Huusko