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Yacht advice: Pros and cons of headsail furling

Headsail furling has obvious advantages. For cruising, where convenience and safety is paramount, the cloth is removed from the cockpit when the wind picks up, before mooring or in an emergency. Further, this winding technique, which is in use now for decades, conveniently adjusts the sail area. This is interesting for charterers, beginners, the occasional sailor, small crew or an …

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How to upgrade a Swede 55

The advantage of modern crusing square metre boats like the S30, S40 or Swede 55 is that they are made of durable and nearly maintenace free fibreglass. The boat hardly needs excessive work. You simply enjoy your precious free time aboard. Added to this is the well thought-out construction of the largest model. The deck and superstructure of Swede 55 …

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The Dream of Lasse Ristikankare

Every sailor knows and admires the Vindoe cruising boats from the Swedish west coast. Vindoes are seventies compromises worth looking at, made of an indestructible and easy-care fibreglass hull with teak deck and handsome mahogany superstructure. A tempting mix of practicality with the traditional look and feel aboard. Swede 55 like a Vindoe In the 1980s, Finnish wooden boatbuilder Lasse …

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Square metre boats: A matter of sail area

Unlike other sailboats, the classic square metre and their successors for cruising are designated by sail area instead of their length or a formula. For example, the 15 stands for the smallest 15 square metre class, the 22 for the 22s, and so on. If the designation number is underlined, as in the above photo of a 30, it is …

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Owner advice: New mainsail

It towers 18 metres into the blue and is ten percent larger than the previous mainsail from the Swiss sailmaker VM Sails, which was unfortunately delivered with too short a foot luff in the nineties. Five battens, two of them continuous at the very top, stabilise the new mainsail. The autumn before, sailmaker Arnd Deutsch and I had discussed a …

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The new jib

Does a blog post covering a single sail make sense? I think so, as sailing Swede 55 is mostly about upwind pleasure. For a long time I sailed Gamle Swede with an old jib. It was too small and really out of shape. Believe it or not: It was made by Canon in 1979. For that long you can use …