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This 13-metre racer is an important boat for the Skerry Cruiser scene in Northern Germany. With Aurora, Georg Milz brought his idea for a sailing event from the 2008 centenary of the Square Metre Class from Stockholm to Fehmarn. She gifted fans of true and classic Skerry Cruisers and their successors, the fabulous Schlank & Rank Regatta.

The North German event has been held every two years since 2009 at the beginning of July and has made the Lemkenhafen Sailing Club on Fehmarn known as the Skerry Cruiser hub on the coast in a lasting manner. There are many clubs on the Baltic Sea where sausages sizzle on the barbecue every weekend, but not one with this theme and reputation.

Further, it is down-to-earth and, to a certain extent, kind of Prosecco-free. There are no white pants, caps, or dark blue blazers with gold buttons here. Okay, there’s a welcome from the board and a few sharp words from the eager sports director of the club, but that’s it. It’s simply a matter of sailing with and, of course, against each other in beautiful boats. In the evening, there’s a lot of chatting.

Aurora — Ambassador from 1920

With her length to beam ratio of 6.4:1, Aurora is an almost reasonable boat, as far as this can be said of Square Metre Boats at all. She was launched just before the rapid development towards ever slimmer and lighter boats, which was driven to extremes in the German Empire within just five years. The ambitious regatta sailor and naval architect Gustaf Estlander pushed the development of the 40s to a length to beam ratio of 8.4:1 by the mid-twenties.

As a result, the Skerry Cruiser Rule was changed in 1925. The hype with 48 boats of the 40 m² Class just in Germany ended abruptly. The revised Rule demanded wider, heavier and correspondingly slower boats. No new 40s have been built since then.

As the photos show, Aurora with all her portholes and arched cabin roof is a wonderful ambassador. When this boat appears in a harbour somewhere, a movie starts from the time when boats were meant for enjoyable sailing and to look at. Knut Holm, owner of Gamleby Varv first rigged the boat for himself at the end of a fjord in the middle of Småland in eastern Sweden in a small village called Gamleby.

Late launch of the 40 m² class from 1916

Square Metre Boats had already existed since 1908 in several classes designated by sail area. However, the 40 m² class was agreed in 1915 as the successor to the less successful 38 and 45 Square Meter Classes. The first new buildings sailed in 1917 and were initially still moderately long with short overhangs.

And they were still sailing with a so-called steep gaff. This rig anticipated the bird’s wing-like shape of the mainsail of the whip-shaped mast that was soon introduced in the class. In 1922, the second owner gave Bambi X the modern Marconi rig with the thin, top-curved whip mast typical of Square Metre Boats. In the same year, it sailed to three first places in the Swedish sailing Mecca of Sandhamn. The curved mast made the most of the limited sail area.

Typical of the Square Metre Boats of those years is also the distribution of the sail area, with almost the entire sailcloth in the mainsail and the rest in the small forewing-like jib.

Have a look at the article on the 75 m² Gustaf regarding the distribution of sail areas on the m² class.

The long cabin with some portholes above the flat-bottomed hull can only be seen on a few surviving skerry cruisers of that era. Aurora offers full stoop height under the semicircular roof. Which brings us to a topic that is pumped up to bursting point in every boat description today, much like today’s dreadful products that are advertised as world premiers. There is a mirrored clothes’ locker, two bunks amidships, a total of four berths, a cooking area and so on. When the weather is fine, Aurora offers even full headroom with the sliding hatch open.

Until 2004, it was sailed by nine different Swedish owners, some of them in joint ownerships. It was called Hermond IV, Zaritza, La Traviata, Lay Out, then Aurora from 1959. The last Swedish owner, Kurre Lundgren, worked hard to restore Aurora in Bromma near Stockholm. The restoration received an award from the Swedish Skerry Cruiser Association, SSKF.

In 2004, Georg Milz took over the boat and sailed it to Lemkenhafen in the windy early summer. With Aurora, Milz returned to the original, so to speak, after many years of owning a modern plastic Cruising Square Metre Boat. As the nice boat collection in the Lemkenhafen Sailing Club shows, a couple of sailors have since followed his example, some of them in owners’ associations.

Aurora was successfully sailed for around 1 1⁄2 decades by Georg Milz, his partner Suse Bruns and his brother Hans at regattas around Fehmarn, the Max Oertz Regatta and Classic Week. A highlight was the first place on the occasion of the centenary of the Stockholm Olympics on the historic course off Nynäshamn in 2012.

Take the Aurora test

A while ago, the boat was extensively overhauled by the Schaich boatyard on Fehmarnsund and modernized with a sense of proportion. Aurora is now in the hands of her twelfth owner and sails the Baltic Sea. If you now find it astonishing that generations of sailors in ever-changing constellations have been longing for the boat: No sailor can resist the charm of this boat. All you have to do is look at it for a quarter of an hour in peace and quiet. The next opportunity to do so will be in Lemkenhafen in mid-July 25, when Aurora returns to Lemkenhafen as a kind of idea generator and trendsetter. So drop by and take the Aurora test.

The antique from Småland in the east of Sweden is enchanting with its flat stem that only curves upwards far forward at the bow. Aurora is an example of what boats do to sailors and how a boating relationship can succeed.

In Sweden, the export of floating cultural assets has long been viewed with suspicion. Aurora shows that selling a classic is perhaps the right thing to do after all, as long as it comes into preserving hands and is sailed wisely.

Konstrukteur	Knut Holm (1864-1938)
Werft/Baujahr	Gamleby Varv, Gamleby Ostschweden/1920
Bauweise	Föhrenplanken
Länge	13 m
Länge Wasserlinie	10,80 m
Breite	1,94 m
Tiefgang	1,50 m
Verdrängung	3,4 t
Rigg	Oregonpine

Rig/sail dimensions Aurora ex. Bambi X

Mainsail luff	≈ 13 m
Mainsal base	4,59 m
Headsail height	≈ 9 m
Headsail base	2,25 m

Literature

• Per Thelander: Alla våra Skärgårdskryssare, Svenska Skärgårdskryssareförbundet (SSKF), Stockholm 1991, 160 Seiten (Swedish), secondhand, ISBN: 91-970902-1-2. Chapter/Boat register of the 40ties, Pages 100 ff.
• Per Thelander, Maria Thorsell: Jakt på kryss. 25 år med Svenska Skärgårdskryssareförbundet, Stockholm 1997, 212 Seiten (Swedish), ISSN 0282-4892. Chapter on 40ties Pages. 101 ff, about Aurora Pages. 105/6
• The world of Square Metres. The Square Metre Rule – 100 years. Facts, history, and reports from all over the globe. Svenska Skärgårdskryssareförbundet (SSKF), Stockholm 2008, ISBN 978-91-633-3069-8 (English)
• Tapani Koskela: I have won, I have lost. The ultimate biography of Tore Holm – Sweden’s greatest yacht designer. Museiförenigen Sveriges Fritidsbåtar/Veteranbåtsföreningen, 515 Seiten, Stockholm: 2021. ISBN: 978 91 519 0016 2. (English). An excellent book about the Holm family, their yard, and boats.

Schlank & Rank 2025 Friday, July 11, 25 Arrival. Saturday 10°° helmsmen’s briefing. Start of the first race around 12°°. Start of the second race after the last boat of the first race has crossed the finish line. From 17°° onwards time to admire the boats, for chatting, dinner, award ceremony and celebrations in Lemkenhafen. Regatta participants stay for free at the SVLF from Friday to Sunday.

Registration/Race results: → Manage to Sail, → Schlank & Rank Website. Photo at the top by Manja Trebing. Updated May 11, 25. → Subscribe Newsletter and you won’t miss future articles.

More: → Segeln mit einem 40er Schärenkreuzer auf dem Starnberger See, → die Schlank & Rank Regatta, → Segelfotografie bei Schlank & Rank