The gaff-rigged 55 Square-Metre (sq.m) Miranda, built for the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, won the sixth edition of the Baltic Classic Masters Cup in the waters off Turku, in southwest Finland from July 29th – August 2nd. The family team, Henrik and Mia Widstrand and their two young boys, raced for three days on traditional 18 – 23 nm archipelago courses and when the final results were ready they had left 29 yachts behind them.
GL Watson set up the Baltic Classic Masters Cup in 2010 as a tribute to the skills of Nordic yacht designers and yacht owners. The Baltic Masters began as a multi-event Cup launched in Trosa, Sweden and included Stockholm, Helsinki, Hanko and St Petersburg. It required yachts to race three regattas in two countries and turned out to be a bit too ambitious. Few yacht owners were prepared to race at more than one or two locations, so since last year the Cup has been organized as a single event. This year it became a great success and exactly in line with the intentions of the founding organisation, the Scandinavian Classic Yacht Trust (SCYT), whose main aim is to encourage international classic yacht racing in the Baltic Sea.
The Baltic Masters is a handicap race and in Turku the Finnish LYS rule was applied, as there is not a generally accepted classic rule in Finland or Sweden. The Cup was part of the 150th anniversary of Airisto Yacht Club in Turku and brought in 30 yachts, 14 each from Finland and Sweden, one from the Netherlands and one from Germany. The international mix of classic yachts has not been seen before in modern times even though there has been a strong tradition of racing between Finnish and Swedish yachts since the early 1900’s.
The conditions were quite windy with grey skies and showers for two days, but on the final day the sun broke through the clouds and the regatta turned into a showcase for classic yacht racing. There were famous Big Boats like the Swedish 150 sq.m Beatrice Aurore (2nd), the Finnish 12mR Blue Marlin (3rd) and the offshore cruiser Navigator. Three Swedish 95 sq.m, La Morena, Britt-Marie and ‘Ala Ala’ were also present and continue their rivalry having been at each others throats since the 1920’s. Also racing was the 10mR Itaka and the 75 sq.m Bacchant, legendary for her victories on Lake Michigan in the United States.
Among the smaller yachts the Knud Reimers ‘Albatross’ design ‘Två Bröder’ from 1938, which is a larger version of the famous Reimers design the Tumlare, stood out for an unusual achievement. Not so much for her good performance in Turku where she finished 14th, but more for the owner’s, Per Ola Forsgren’s, single-handed ”delivery” sail of 200 nm from Stockholm to Turku, including a pretty rough 40 nm crossing across the Sea of Åland. The voyage took six days of sailing with the added hardship of cooking and sleeping in the 3.5 tonne, 30’ double ender. Great to see that seamanship is still respected and rewarded.
