Reading Time: 5 minutesAt the end of a busy week, it is nice to visit the weekly market with your loved one and a pretty raffia basket on Saturday. On the way, you have your first or second coffee and find out what the weekend will bring. Sadly, pleasing leisure activity wears out eventually. And in our latitudes there are seasons whose Saturdays …
Reading Time: 8 minutesFinally located in a former match factory in Västervik on the Swedish east coast from 1968 to 1979 and Gränna near Lake Vättern, Fisksätra built motorboats and vessels for customs, the navy and nautical survey. Then, from the sixties onwards, sailboats, cosy double-enders and popular cabin cruisers. Finally, the S30 and Swede 55 cruising square metre boats were built in …
Reading Time: 2 minutesAre you still bobbing around or sailing already? Easygoing square metre boats answer this question in their way. These beautiful light air windmills make something out of nearly nothing. Around thirty boats, from classic 15 square metre boats to a modern cruising 55 are sailing the Slim & Tender Race (Schlank & Rank Regatta) off Fehmarn on the German coast …
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 boat …
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 previous Swede 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 on whether to inspect at all or not. He booked advice to find an …
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt towers 18 metres into the blue and is ten percent bigger than the previous one 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 the fall before, sailmaker Arnd Deutsch and I had discussed a special sailcloth and other details. …
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 in …
