Reading Time: 6 minutesThe square metre boat cruising variant Swede 55 delights sailors all around the globe. Although series production ended in 1979 with hull number 27 Gamle Swede launched by Fisksätra Yard, 18 more boats followed. One of these is Cheyenne. Göran Lindgren got his dream boat for the Stockholm archipelago. The result is a powerful and fun-to-sail boat with a heavier, …
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn the 1970s, admirers of the Dragon, 30 square metre boats, Lacustre or the Folkboat had a problem. Wooden boats were a lot of work and unaffordable to build new. That’s why they have been built in plastic ever since. At the end of the 1980s, Steve White took the opposite step in Brooklin Boatyard. He built the GRP series …
Reading Time: 6 minutesAn overlooked and notoriously underestimated issue is the weight of the boat. How heavy and thus undercanvassed is it? Will it sail in light winds at all? And how much extra load, provisions and luggage can it handle? Five examples. Concrete mixer or sailboat? Today, cruising boats are seen as floating weekend condomuniums. All comforts are repeated aboard that we …
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe advantage of modern cruising square metre boats or Skärgårdskryssare like S30, Jubilee S40 or Swede 55 is that they come in durable and nearly maintenance free fibreglass. You simply enjoy your precious time aboard. Added to this is the well-thought-out construction of the largest model. The deck and superstructure of Swede 55 were made by Fisksaetra Varv as an …
Reading Time: 2 minutesEvery sailor admires the Vindö cruising boats from the Swedish west coast. Vindös are seventies compromises worth looking at, made of a rock solid and easy-care fibreglass hull with a teak deck and a handsome mahogany superstructure. A tempting mix of practicality with the traditional look and feel aboard. The Dream of Lasse Ristikankare. In the 1980s, Finnish wooden boatbuilder …
Reading Time: 5 minutesSwede 55 can be enjoyed as built in the 1970s. Believe it or not and even if some do-it-yourselfers find it difficult: you can simply sail this boat as it is – with one exception: Unfortunately, the yard did not consider an important issue at the time, anchoring. A secure anchor that you can easily deploy and back on board …
Reading Time: 2 minutesNot long ago, an American contacted me regarding the purchase of a secondhand Swede 55. As a former 55 owner he was familiar with the boat. Enthralled by the 55, he found a particular boat on the eastern seaboard of the US and sought advice whether to inspect it at all or not. He booked advice to find an answer …
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt towers 18 metres into the blue and is ten percent bigger than the previous mainsail by Swiss sailmaker VM Sails, which came with a short foot luff in the nineties. Five battens, two of them continuous at the top, stabilise the cloth. In fall before, sailmaker Arnd Deutsch and I had discussed a special sailcloth and other details. It …
Reading Time: 4 minutesUntil this proudly remembered Friday end of May 2019, one thing is clear aboard Gamle Swede: we will meet a Twelve metre class only at the start of the race. Then this 22 metre upwind sailing machine, powered by 240 square metres, is gone. No reasonable sailor will take that pack with dull presumption, so we prepare with due realism …
Reading Time: 4 minutesDoes a post about buying a single sail, a new jib make sense? I think so, as sailing Swede 55 is mostly about upwind pleasure. And for a long time I sailed Gamle Swede with an old, worn out and to small jib. Believe it or not: It was made by Canon/Västervik in 1979. For that long you can use …
