A crush on this originally Swedish, temporarily Finnish and recently Swiss example of the 75 m2 Skerry Cruiser of 1918. How Gun keeps eight caregiving sailors happy and busy while pleasing spectators on Lake Constance. Finally, the question of who will continue this fabulous story.
Let’s start with an almost forgotten detail, this arched coach roof made of maroon brown mahogany. At home, glossy lacquered furniture would appear uncool, like grandma’s cupboard in the living room. Outdoors, it seems as impractical as the honey-coloured Douglas fir deck, due the annual sanding and repainting job. It is glossy varnished so that water won’t penetrate the wood, leaving ugly dark stains. So you enter is barefoot with the maritime version of the stopper sock, boat shoes.
75 m2 dual world cruiser
Considering Gun, who could be still interested in the inevitable floating goods that are introduced annually as world firsts? And who will be looking at such insults tomorrow, let alone in a hundred years’ time?
Boats are partly for sailing, but fundamentally they are there to be admired. If the Sargasso Sea-like apathy of a typically windless summer day on Lake Constance has any meaning, then this. The locals are supposed to make the most of it with boats that sit snugly on the water.
In case a breeze appears and raises the shoulders of the spinnaker, the real sensation of this two-world cruiser follows. Namely, what the stretched planks of this light air windmill makes of nearly nothing, which only the locals call wind. What barbarians actually came up with the idea of building boats different from Gun, this 75-foot Skerry Cruiser, which stood on the slipway of the unforgettable Hästholm Varv on the island of Lidingö, northeast of Stockholm, in the spring of 1918? This Yard only existed from 1910 to 1951. Its products endure because some people have always been fascinated by them, enjoyed them in the summer and took care of them in the dark months until the next season.
Gun ready to launch in spring 1918 at Hästholms Varv/Lidingö near Stockholm – Photo Sjöhistoriska museet, PDM 1.0
At that time, 6 tons of dark mahogany, oak, bright Douglas fir and lead were pushed out of the shed under the sky, then launched and rigged with a short mast for hoisting the steep gaff.
This was the common rigging method in the first decade after the introduction of the Skerry Cruiser in 1908. As the next drawing shows, the boom was long and the headsail area was marginal. Most of the sail area was in the mainsail. Its steep gaff already hinted at the bird’s-wing shape that would soon become standard on the Skerry Cruiser.
Original steep gaffed rigging – Teknisk Tidskrift 1919
Then the so-called Marconi rigging, with that thin, radio antenna-like mast, became popular. Sailors had copied this from the Italian broadcasting pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
Later, the sail geometry was further adjusted to reflect recent findings. The mast become longer, and the boom correspondingly shorter. The headstay was moved slightly higher and forward. Thus, the Jib became larger. This sail arrangement is more efficient. Since the Skärgårdskryssare Rule considers 85% of the headsail triangle instead of the actual headsail size, larger sails were beneficial.
When the so-called Genoa was first tried out on the Ligurian Sea in 1926s and quickly became popular, the new distribution of the sail area was further exploited. Not only did the aforementioned unmeasured real sail area of 15% grow, but also everything that overlapped the Genoa’s sides next to the mast. You can find an in-depth look at this archipelago cruiser finesse in the article linked below.
The dollhouse with the arched cabin roof remained. That is the charm of this dual-world cruiser. This precious Skerry Cruiser from the late 1910s is wonderfully yesterday’s. And it embodies today’s sailing avant-garde, with a tall and impressively light carbon mast.
Mastgarden, Navigation Lights, and Engraving
Let’s stay on the deck for a moment. Typical of classic sailboats such as Seefahrtkreuzer, Skerry Cruisers, or Jollenkreuzer is the so-called mast garden in front of the cabin. It encloses the mast with a breakwater-like coaming, keeps the halyards in place, pushes water coming from the front back to Lake Constance, and visually stretches the boat.
The navigation lights located at the rear end of the cabin are also worth seeing. They have been preserved, as has the engraving on the housing of the rudder stock under the tiller. Willi Sauter, one of the eight owners, reports that after dechroming and sanding, there was little of the engraving left. So it was re-engraved and appears today as it did in 1918, when Gun was first pushed out of the Lidingö yard.
As befits a dual-world cruiser, the spar, and boom are fairly modern. For a slender and correspondingly tender boat like Gun, with a length-to-beam ratio of 6.5:1, a carbon rig is beneficial. The bare spar weighs about half the of a conventional aluminium or wooden one.
A glance into the cabin with its two turned stanchions, the upholstery, and the empty bow transfers the visitor back a century. Gun is a composite construction of mahogany planks with two oak frames followed by a steel frame. Some of these have already been foresightedly replaced with stainless steel in the permanently damp bilge.
A look at the entire boat in winter storage and at the crane reveals the elegance, with its fine bow and stern sections. Just six tons are moved through the water. From the outside, Gun, with its immaculately smooth hull, appears like a new build. As a carpenter, Willi Sauter is a pillar of the owner’s group and reports with the matter-of-factness of a craftsman: “If the paintwork is carefully applied after the seams have been milled out and the paint is carefully rolled, the result is a blend as if it were spray-painted. Epifanes makes truly perfect paints.”
There would certainly be room for the three letters of the boat’s name under the transom of the classically sloping stern. But only the ducks would see it then. That’s why they are placed as raised brass letters on the side of the hull.
From Libera to Vintage racing
Since jointly operating a B-Class Libera racer named Carondimonio, the owners’ association is familiar with the shared management of interesting boats. They have a reputation at well-known long-distance regattas on Lake Constance, Lake Garda, and Lake Geneva, some of which finished with first places.
When it is time for a Skerry Cruiser
This vessel, both aesthetically and in terms of its length-to-beam ratio of 1.8:1, resembled a flying saucer, driven across the lake by almost the entire crew placed outboard on thin trapeze wires. The key specifications were 12.70 × 7 m, 1.5 t net, and moved from 100 m² upwind, and up to 300 m² downwind. At around 25 knots, this made it significantly faster than Gun, but unfortunately not as beautiful.
In 2012, the Carondimonio syndicate realized, faced with the boat’s declining value and inevitable advancing owners age, that it was time for something beautiful and lasting. One day, every serious sailor is due for a Skerry Cruiser. So, Gun was brought from Finland to Lake Constance. Key, not easily resolvable issues, such as the lack of a mooring and the broken carbon mast brought back from Helsinki, were quickly resolved with contacts, sympathy, and in-house carbon expertise.
In 2018, the boat’s centenary was celebrated in Constance during Lake Constance Week. It’s noteworthy in this context that the Gun sailors invited all regatta participants to a party, something sailors rarely, if ever, do because they are known to invest every penny in their boat.
The dollhouse was covered with mahogany veneer. How to apply 3 mm veneer to make it look like it did in 1918, like many other boat repairs, is a story in itself. Roughly speaking, it’s done with epoxy, vacuum, and if you have the skills. Recently, Gun got a new carbon mast from the Hungarian specialist Pauger, which extended the dual-world theme a little further for the next few decades.
Who will continue sailing Gun?
After 13 years of operation, it is time for the next generation of sailors, ideally one on Lake Constance. Then the current owners could enjoy watching Gun proudly from ashore. For reasons stated above, it wouldn’t matter if there was at most a slight breeze. They imagine themselves standing on the lake promenade with their walking sticks, remembering the best sailing party of their lives.
Benefits of marriage-compatible joint ownership
Compared to a family owned mainstream boat which costs a lot and hardly provides pleasure, a joint ownership of a tempting classic is a marriage-friendly option. A quick look at our ports, where one mass-produced Bavaria, Beneteau, Dufour or Hanse sits next to the other, comfirms this. A share of Gun gifts with exquisite yacting pleasure and the entire affair stays within budget and time constraints. Second, your wife knows that she can come along occasionally between June and August, but doesn’t have to. Third, she’s sure that her husband is busy on the weekends and wher he is. After all, he comes home with shining eyes and hight motivated for the usual landlife obligations like shopping, garden parties, confirmations, or mowing the lawn.
So first, send your wife the link to the website of the dual-world cruiser. Women have an eye for beautiful things. Then make your sailing buddies familiar with Gun.
Six happy men dressed matching to their pastime. Note the name mounted aside – Photo Nico Krauss
Hästholmsvarvet
The shipyard was located in what is now Kvarnholmen in the Nacka district of Stockholm, close to the city centre, and initially made a name with so-called saloon boats, better known as motor yachts. In 1910, the 15-meter-long Standart won a long-distance race around southern Sweden from Nynäshamn to Gothenburg. The race was organized by the KSSS’s motorboat department. In October 1917, the yard relocated to Gåshaga on Lidingö in the northeast of the city, where Gun was built under the leadership of Knut Ljungberg. The legendary 150 m² Skerry Cruiser Singoalla followed in 1919. The yard was closed in the ownership of Knud Reimers in 1951.
Naval Architect Erik Salander
Erik Salander (1883–1957) studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was one of the founders of the archipelago cruiser rule, formulated in the winter of 1907/8. In February 1908, he designed the first archipelago cruiser, Älfvan (German: Elfe). Salander designed numerous archipelago cruisers, including the 55, 75, and 95 series, such as Kerma and Gerdny. His drawings are archived at the Swedish Archipelago Museum in Stockholm.
Sail areas & rig dimensions
Nominelle Segelfläche laut Schärenkreuzer Regel: Großsegel ∆ + 85 % des Vorsegel ∆
75 m2
Mainsail
≈ 49 m2 + Achterlieksrundung
Jib
≈ 30 m2
Genoa I
≈ 48 m2 (≈ 3 m überlappend)
Spinnaker
≈ 160 m2
P (Mainsail luff)
≈ 17 m
E (Mainsail foot)
≈ 5,80 m
I (Height headsail ∆)
≈ 12,90 m
J (Base headsail ∆)
4,20 m
Boat data Gun
Entwurf nach der 1916 erstmals überarbeiteten Schärenkreuzer-Regel von 1908, Konstruktion
Erik Salander
Werft/Baujahr
Hästholmswerft in Gåshaga auf Lidingö bei Stockholm 1918
Segelnummer
S 1, SUI 1
Bauweise
Mahagoniplanken ≈ 20–22 mm auf 30 × 30 mm Eichenspanten, Abstand Mitte-Mitte 170 mm, jeder dritte Spant aus 35×35×3 mm Stahl, Winkelprofile. Insgesamt ≈90 Spanten
Deck
Douglasie
Länge
16,60 m
Länge Wasserlinie
10,60 m
Überhänge an Bug und Heck
6 m, ≈ 1⁄3
Breite
2,57 m
Längen-/Breitenverhältnis
6,5 : 1
Tiefgang
1,90 m
Verdrängung (gewogen)
6 t
Bleiballast, Ballastanteil
2,45 t, ≈ 41 %
Motor
Nanni Diesel 15,4 kW, 30 PS mit Welle
Neuer Karbonmast von Pauger Carbon Composites 2022
Mastlänge 19,40 m, Nettoröhrengewicht ≈ 69 kg
Sources
Per Thelander: Alla våra Skärgårdskryssare, (All our Skerry Cruisers) Svenska Skärgårdskryssareförbundet (SSKF), Stockholm 1991, 160 pages (Swedish) secondhand, ISBN: 91-970902-1-2, ↑ S. 125
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)
Seekönigin. Hundert Jahre in Fahrt. Der 75 m2 Schärenkreuzer Gun bereichert Klassikerszene am Bodensee, Yacht Magazine, 24/2018.
Contact to the seller: Jakob Blattner. Thanks to Jakob Blattner and Willi Sauter for Gun infos. Slider photos, mostly by Nico Krauss. Top photo by Nico Krauss: Gun off Konstanz. Updated May 24, 25→ Subscribe Newsletter and you won’t miss future articles.
