25 minute read
Club Activities
Dear Members,
Thank you for the year that has passed and at the same time I cordially welcome to you to our upcoming anniversary year and the 2020 Olympics
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Thank you to everyone who made the 2019 season particularly memorable, successful and rewarding. In the reference to ”everyone”, I am constantly impressed by the many, wonderful people that make our hugely broad and successful endeavor possible. In full season, at all functions, we are close to 500 people working for KSSS. I want all of you who have contributed to our business to truly receive this genuine thank you.
During the summer season of 2019, there was full activity on all levels. Like last year, we again had well-attended camps on both Långholmen and Lökholmen. Some special news was that we could offer our Lökholmen participants 13 brand new school boats, ”RS Quest”, which the club managed to get fully funded through generous donations in the spring. The experience of these new school boats was above our expectations in both sailing experience and quality.
We also succeeded in successfully delivering the Club’s largest squadron “ever”. In collaboration with our friends at North American Station (NAS) and their partner Cruising Club of America (CCA), this more than two weeks long squadron was carried out with great success. Some 40 sailboats and nearly 250 people participated and although the weather could be perceived as somewhat challenging, this did not change the participants’ praise about KSSS efforts and their experience of our beautiful archipelago.
As usual we have delivered large and small regattas. From regattas in the spring, to ÅF Offshore Race around Gotland and the classic Sandhamns Regattan, to the Nordic region’s largest dinghy regatta Olympic Class Regatta and a closing Club Championship. The ÅF Offshore Race once again became an extremely successful event, on land as well as at sea. However, it became a challenging race with an unusually large number of boats that had to retire. We gratefully noted the number of personal injuries were limited and we saw numerous good examples of good seamanship. At the same time, we were delighted with the many worthy winners in the different classes, with the VO65 HiQ IV becoming both total winner, class winner, secured line honors and setting a new speed record.
On our “home turf” Baggensfjärden, we have started testing the sprint format in J/70; this is the format used by Allsvenskan Sailing, the Mästarnas Mästare and internationally at the Sailing Champions League, sailing many, short races during a concentrated race day. This has been greatly appreciated by the participants and something we intend to develop further in the future. A concept that is right in time and where our time share plan around our J/70 also matches well.
As a member, you should also be delighted with the success of our members on various national and international regattas. A particularly great topic as a club was that we again, for the third year in a row (and the fourth time in the last five years), managed to secure the victory in Allsvenskan Sailing among 18 national club teams. In addition, KSSS has participated in the Nord Stream Race, the GSYS International Team Race, the Sailing Champions League as well as the NYYC Invitational Cup as a club and with better results than any previous year. The year ended nicely with our members Iain Percy and Anders Ekström winning the Star Sailors League Final in the Bahamas.
At the elite level, our stars have been out in the world tes-
ting their level against the best. Now they are some of the best in the world and has made us very proud as a club. They were definitely a favorite team for the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Now they will use the 2020 season to further refine their skills and aim for Tokyo in 2021. This year started brilliantly with Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergström winning the Princess Sofia Trophy and later taking home the gold in the European Championship in 470. Later in the season, Jesper Stålheim managed to win the Pre-Olympic Regatta in Japan. As an example of other successes, Vilma Bobeck and Malin Tengström both secured a bronze in the European Championship as well as a silver in the Junior World Cup in 49erFX while Josefin Olsson won Kieler Woche and took a sixth place in the Laser Radial World Cup. In addition, some of them have been especially praised by the Swedish Sailing Federation, where Anton and Fredrik were crowned ”Sailor of the Year”, Jesper as ”Best Male Sailor of the Year” and Vilma and Malin as ”Best Female Sailor of the Year”. We have also had the pleasure of gathering our elite team together with the esteemed people who financially support their efforts through the ”KSSS Elite Board”. This time we had the privilege of meeting at the Japanese Ambassador’s residence in Djursholm in extremely generous and pleasant forms.
Our Club has a strong brand and an impressive business that many want to associate with and create interesting collaborations around. It is extremely gratifying, and we have for many years had the benefit of working with some extremely strong companies. It was gratifying then that this year we succeeded in securing three new main partner collaborations, with leading companies such as Coop, Coca-Cola and Samsung. Often, it is our increasingly clear sustainability profile combined with our sailing business that attracts collaborations. These companies are complemented by the continued collaboration with Stena Recycling, Helly Hansen as main partners, but also with other partner companies as well in our KSSS Network. Through these partnerships, we strengthen both the membership offer, we get the opportunity to convey our sport, our activities and our own brand to a wider circle and of course it also means an important financial support that enables the further development of our club’s activities.
Your Board of Directors and by extension the various committees of the club and the office have also worked with your club. During the fiscal year, we have had five board meetings, and that we have held our annual strategy meeting. On strategy day, we take the opportunity to go through the 5-year strategy with everyone involved, which is only in itself an appreciated opportunity to share opinions and create new dialogues about how we will take the club further into the future. We hope that you see the fruits of our work in different ways depending on where in our business you are active as a member. It is for you, dear member, that we choose to get involved in the board, committees as well as our esteemed staff at the office. We hope that you feel inspired and look forward to hearing from you with questions and comments, but also that you show your own interest in getting involved in our brilliant club.
On the coming pages we offer you a little more detailed information about the year that went with greetings from our committees.
I look forward to see many of you during the anniversary year 2020
Warm Regards, Patrik Salén
29ers in tight battle around the windward mark at Olympic Class Regatta.
After an unusually dark and wet November, it gives you a nice feeling in the body to look back on the year that passed. We have once again offered our sailors a lot of opportunities for training and delivered several nice regattas for sailors from all over the country.
Our long-term strategy includes, among other things, trying to achieve a more balanced gender distribution among our active sailors and coaches, and it is therefore satisfying to see that we have achieved an even distribution among our coaches, which we also hope will help get more young girls to choose sailing as their sport. In August we also introduced a ”girl group” for new opti-sailors on a green level and we hope that the girls in the group will return to training this spring. We are following the trend and will evaluate if this is something to continue with.
As the number of sailors in training increases, so does the need for coaches. During the fall, we arranged training for some of our younger coaches, where the Optimist class coach, Oscar Panzare, combined teaching theory with practice on the water. Based on the positive comments from the coaches, this is something to build on.
KSSS has regularly conducted training for the Optimist, Laser Standard/Radial/4.7, 29er, Moth/Waszp, F18 and J/70 classes during the season. In addition to the established classes, we also have a growing number of RS Aero trained together with the Laser sailors. This one-man boat is a welcome alternative for our lighter sailors. It is a modern design, a light and fast boat where the sailors can choose the appropriate rig size. During the autumn we also borrowed an RS Feva to test to see if there is an interest and demand for a simpler two-man boat for younger sailors.
During the year, we started up KSSS Offshore Clinic together with Team Pro4u. KSSS has lacked opportunities for education/training in offshore sailing and it is very positive that we have now added this option for the older juniors. This spring our enthusiastic and ambitious opti-sailors were the first out on Baggen when the ice melted. They wanted to get started with the training before the traditional national qualifications that takes place during two weekends in May. The overall result is the basis for the selection for this summer’s championship. KSSS had over 25 participants who fought valiantly in every conceivable situation. Many sailors performed very well, which resulted in that we, once again had sailors at all championships. Erik Norlén, who qualified for the World Championship, succeeded best, followed by Julia Leukfeld and Ida Elfving, who were allowed to represent Sweden at the European Championships. KSSS also had a number of sailors on the team for the Junior Nordic Championship. For the third year in a row, KSSS organized one of the parts in the Stockholm Cup in June for the region’s Optimist sailors in Ranängen. It became a very popular competition with over 100 participants divided on two courses. A shorter course outside the harbor for the less experienced sailors, and a longer course for the more experienced sailors on the waters off Djursholm. A big thank you to all the officials who participated in this nice event which now has become an annual regatta in the competition calendar. In conjunction with the Stockholm Cup, we again took the opportunity to arrange a “girl camp” together with the Swedish Optimist Dinghy Association to encourage and gather young sailing girls in the region to hang out and encourage them to continue to train and compete. The camp was
very much appreciated, many thanks to our fantastic female coaches. We are now working on making this camp for the third time in 2020. The weekend after midsummer, it was time for “Lilla ÅF Offshore Race” which is arranged at Skeppsholmen. Our ambition and objective with this competition is to attract both new and experienced Optimist sailors to a fun and slightly different competition. After a lot of thinking about, based on the experience from the previous year among other things, it was decided to sail a distance course with start and finish outside Skeppsholmen. To summarize, we can see that this sailing location can offer many unexpected and challenging conditions and situations. The event was very much appreciated by both participants and the audience and we are already planning for the competition in 2020. And we would like to point out that also sailors who are not part of the regular training in Saltis or Ranängen are very welcome! Several of the club’s Laser juniors participated in some of the many championships organized for the various Laser classes during the year. The international championships provide a lot of experience and it is good for the sailors to get to sail in the large starting fields offered. Many have made great achievements, but I would like to highlight Lova Forssén who succeeded in becoming the Laser sailor who, after this spring’s tough qualifying series, took the Swedish spot at the Youth Sailing World Championships 2019.
We have been trying for some time to encourage our younger sailors to sail 29ers and it is very gratifying to see that we now have a number of crews at different levels in training. 29er is a challenging but evolving and fun tool, although it will offer some swimming in the beginning ... Three crews from KSSS successfully participated at the World Champion-
The KSSS Olympic Class Regatta is the largest regatta in the Nordics. 79 starts in 12 different classes during two days.
ships in Gdynia in early August. Hugo Liljegren and Simon Granath made their way to the gold final and eventually won the World Championship bronze for crews younger than 17 years! I am sure we will have 29er crews fighting for the Swedish places for the Youth Sailing World Championships 2020 held in Salvador, Brazil.
Several of our juniors have also been part of the teams that represented KSSS during the National Sailing League (Allsvenskan Segling) four competitions during the year. KSSS has varied the crews during the various competitions and it is gratifying to see how young and older sailors together managed to sail home the total victory for KSSS this year, again! KSSS will continue to alternate crews, so keep an eye open for information about when invites for these competitions are published.
We see an increasing interest in sprint sailing in boats provided by the organizers. In 2020, together with the Swedish Sailing Federation, we will arrange a qualification for the Youth Champions League in Saltsjöbaden. The members of the participating teams must be under the age of 25 and winning teams will have the opportunity to participate in the Youth Champions League, which will be held in Kiel in June 2020.
Another variant of club competition is the “5-Club Regatta”, which is an arrangement alternated between KSSS, GKSS, NJK (FIN), KDY (DEN) and NKS (NOR). The regatta is aimed at club teams comprised of juniors from the various clubs. In 2019 GKSS was the host and competitions were held in Marstrand. It was a tough regatta, but the KSSS team consisting of Jenny Hammersland (helmsman), Ida Elfving, and Rasmus Granzin managed to defend KSSS colors again this year and win the regatta. Good work!
The autumn ended with three big dinghy competitions very close to each other, Region Qualification for Optimist, Swedish Championship in Team sailing for Optimist and the entire end of dinghy Sweden’s autumn closing: KSSS Olympic Class Regatta (OCR).
The Swedish Championship in Team sailing for Optimist was not in the original season planning, but when the intended organizer was unable to deliver, KSSS volunteered to organize this regatta with very short notice in close cooperation with the Swedish Optimist Association. Team sailing is much appreciated by many sailors and a full eight teams participated from KSSS. Many sailed well and the team that succeeded best came on the podium!
KSSS OCR is traditionally arranged on the first weekend in October. It was a fantastic autumn weekend with glorious conditions and winds that enabled all planned sailing to be completed for the approximately 450 sailors who were in place. KSSS OCR is the largest dinghy regatta in the Nordic region and engages hundreds of volunteers to get logistics on land and the four courses to flow as we wish. It is impressive what KSSS welloiled office staff together with all our talented and dedicated officials can achieve together.
The KSSS OCR weekend also offered a Swedish premiere for the new Olympic discipline “Mixed Two Person Keelboat Offshore”, a distance race for mixed shorthanded crews sailing in J/70. Start on Saturday morning just outside KSSS Club house and then a distance course and finish before darkness fell. Eight crews participated and we will build on this concept to attract new crews to this discipline and offer more challenging “offshore sailing”.
It is only when you try to summarize all the activities of the club and our sailors during the year that you realize how ex-
tensive the club’s activities are. I would therefore like to conclude by sending a big thank you to all the dedicated trainers and staff at KSSS office, as well as all the fantastic parents and staff who spend a lot of their energy and free time in order to enable our sailors to train and compete, both at home and around about the world. This commitment is a prerequisite for the sailors to be able to develop the way that they do.
During 2020, KSSS celebrates 190 years as a club! The anniversary year will offer additional membership activities, of which more information will be provided during the year. The training committee’s big event during the year will be the European Championship for Star class in September, the National Qualification for the Optimist class in May, and again all the big end: KSSS Olympic Class Regatta.
Fredrik Liljegren Chairman of the KSSS Training Committe
The Training Committee plans and operates competitive sailing in dinghy, board and multihulled classes, and manages its related matters. One of the Training Committee’s duties is to take care of matters related to the development of the Club’s elite sailors.
The purpose of the Offshore Racing Committee is, as the name implies, to arrange offshore races. The purpose is to encourage more people to race on the sea; to give Swedish sailors good events on “home waters”; and to attract sailors from other countries to our courses.
The committee planned and implemented four regattas in 2019: Sandhamn Open, ÅF Inshore Race, ÅF Offshore Race and the Autumn Mix. On three of these regattas we have offered a shorthanded class.
The Sandhamn Open was sailed in light winds this year, the course covered 58 nm during the night Thursday through Friday followed by course racing during Friday afternoon and Saturday. The race has seen steadily increasing participation in recent years with 49 boats on the starting lines in 2019.
In ORCi the victorious Imperiet with skipper Mats Victorin won the offshore race, while Magic Mix with Patrik Björklund won the course sailing. The winner in the SRS offshore race was Team Pro4u with skipper Patrik Forsgren while Johan Bratt at Solong won the course sailing. The shorthanded sailors just sailed the distance race. Of the eight boats that started, the First 40.7, Blueprint with Andreas Hamrin and Emely Hagen was the winner.
ÅF Offshore Race is the world’s largest annual offshore race, as well as KSSS signature regatta. Since moving the start to Skeppsholmen, the event has become better every year for both spectators and participants. Over a hundred staff members worked hard to make everything flow smoothly, always with a friendly smile. There has been a steady number of participants over the past three years, at the same time we have seen a steady increase in foreign
The smooth sailing in the beginning of ÅF Offshore Race 2019 turned into tough conditions and hard winds later on...
boats (53 compared to 51 in 2018) and shorthanded (from 28 to 35).
Before ÅF Offshore Race started, ÅF Inshore Race was sailed, as usual on the waters close to the event area. A shorter distance course was sailed in 2-3 hours, depending on the size of the boat. The race attracts a mix of boats that either cannot sail the ÅF Offshore Race (H-boats, Folkboats, smaller archipelago cruisers etc.), those who want some extra training before sailing around Gotland and boats who want to be able to take out sponsors before the start for the big event. The result is an exciting competition with widely different boats on the same course. The 2019 winner was the experienced Patrik Forsgren with Team Pro4u.
The ÅF Offshore Race started out in a steady breeze with upwind to Vaxholm. It was evident that the lighter winds at the start would be replaced by considerably stronger winds in the coming night, which meant that some boats did chose not to start. In the end, 225 boats sailed out through the archipelago. Already in the early evening, when most boats were in the vicinity of Kanholmsfjärden and approaching Sandhamn and the open sea, the wind had increased. Many made tactical sail changes in the leeward of the last islands and prepared for a tough night. Then the wind came. When the new front with a westerly wind came over the course, wind gusts were well over 20 m/s was measured on some boats. During the next few hours, much was broken and almost a hundred boats were forced to withdraw from the race. The participants showed good judgment and seamanship, sailed wisely and adapted to prevailing conditions as well as boat and crew capacity. Despite four mast breakage, rudder failure, keel problems, sail problems and extensive sea sickness, only two injuries occurred; one arm and one leg fracture. The KSSS security organization showed the result of solid planning and professional staffing as they ensured that both sea rescue and sailors were kept well informed throughout the race. KSSS collaboration with, among other units, the Sea Rescue Center JRCC, SSRS, Coast Guard and the competitors enabled quick and good efforts, both rescue operations on site in the competition area and advice via VHF and telephone. After three years of severe winds and rough sea, one can justifiably consider that the ÅF Offshore Race offers a real challenge and that good preparations produce results.
No one mastered the harsh weather better than the VO65 HiQ IV with Bouwe Bekking at the helm, which, closely followed by the other VO65 Ambersail and Figaro 3 Tutalör, showing what boats built for the big oceans can do when it starts to blow properly. These three took the first three places in the total result list calculated according to the SRS rule.
In the ORCi classes, Nirvana with Marcus Dennerstedt won ORCi A. Jonas Grandér showed that Matador in ORCi B with crew well trained in everything from Sydney-Hobart to Fastnet and Middle Sea Race handled the weather gallantly. Neither did ORCi C offer any big surprises, as our perhaps most successful offshore team, Team Pro4u with Patrik Forsgren, was once again at the top of the podium.
In SRS, experience also proved to be a good preparation as Foxy Lady took home SRS Class A, Tiki Mino’s SRS Class B and Prima Donna Class C. The Shorthanded class was as mentioned before won by Tutalör with Christian Martin and Martin Angsell. In SRS Big Boat, HiQ IV won. The newly established prize for the best all female crew was won by Necesse with Pernilla Andrén at the helm. Award for best crew with 50% women was won by shorthanded crew Team
Mobline Nadine Kugel and Per Lindfors.
On the Classic course, Refanut won as one of only two classic boats that managed to complete the competition down to Visby and the finish in Sandhamn. The multi-hull boats also had it harder than most. After only five out of ten have reached the finish in 2018, it became a similar fallout in 2019 when only one of the five starting boats, Jena with Bertil Claeson, managed to get around the entire course.
The season ended with a soldout Autumn mix. The race is limited to twenty-five boats and sailed shorthanded with mixed crew. The start was in light breezes in Saltsjöbaden, which gradually increased to 5 m/s. Ingaröfjärden was filled by spinnakers during the last leg back towards the finish line at Saltsjöbaden and the following fantastic dinner with old and new friends. Maria and Tomas Movin won in an Express followed by Rikard Isby and Inger Swing in the successful one-off boat Mithril. In third place was Katja Salén who sailed a J/70 with her husband, as well as KSSS Commodore, Patrik Salén.
In recent years, we have seen how shorthanded has gone from a novelty to a stable part of sail racing in Sweden. It is gratifying to see how we can offer shorthanded classes on all our distance races and that the number of participants is steadily increasing. The same can be said for women in sailing. Still, only a few crews are fully female, but in return we see a large number of crews with at least one woman on board, often more. Both of these are trends that we want to support and continue to see grow. It is with confidence that we plan for the 2020 racing season.
The Fleet Sailing Committee plans and conducts fleet racing in the skerries of keelboats and handles issues in conjunction to the area. The Committee collaborates with other clubs both in Sweden and abroad and with the Government agencies who oversee fleet sailing.
The Course Sailing Committee’s (CSC) purpose is to at arrange and develop KSSS keelboat regattas with the objective to being Sweden’s best sail racing organizer and a leading organizer internationally. We achieve this goal by, among other things:: • Increase the quality of regattas on water and land • Regularly host Swedish and international championships • Educate our volunteers • Actively work to increase the proportion of female sailors and volunteers
2019 was a year in which part of what had disappeared and new came into being, a necessary change and development in order for KSSS regattas to continue to be attractive competitions for sailors, officials and members in the coming years. With an already crowded race sailing calendar in the Stockholm region, the CSC has begun a long-term change where our goal is to arrange slightly fewer regattas, but with bigger starting fields, more international championships and creating attractive arenas both at sea and on land for KSSS partners.
The season started as usual with the training sail Spring Break where this year we invited the J/70 class to train our officials.
In May, it was time for the Saltsjöbaden Regatta, one of the world’s oldest annual races. In normal order with focus on smaller keelboats was one design, but unfortunately in recent years it has proved difficult to gather enough starters in certain classes, which is why both Star boat and Dragon were removed from the program.
In June CSC has for many years arranged course racing during the Sandhamn Open together with the Offshore Committee for classes like Farr 30, Dragon, X-35, J/70 and F18. Unfortunately, the number of active major classes has decreased and participation has dropped, so the decision not to arrange the regatta in 2019 was made after the Sandhamn Open 2018 due to low participation. The goal is to develop Sandhamn Open together with the Offshore Committee from 2020 with a focus on sailing for larger boats, doublehanded and the new Olympic class Mixed Two Person Keelboat Offshore.
The large regatta, Sandhamns Regatta by Bluewater has been a yearly successful event with a large Classic class of beautiful older boats together with a Swedish/International championship. This year was 122 years since the regatta was first organized and it was offered a tangible participant record for Classic with 25 participants. This year also featured an Open Swedish Championship for ORCi with 18 offshore racers ranging from 31 to 51 feet at the to start. The brandnew Shogun 50 “Ladykiller” with Mats Bergeryd was the biggest, most beautiful and impressive on the track. Finnish X-41 “Mercedes-Benz EQ” managed to defeat otherwise last year’s unbeatable Team Pro4u with Patrik Forsgren in a First 36.7 which this year went home with a second prize. However, Patrik with crew became the Swedish Champions in Offshore sailing.
In the classic class in the light winds were two smaller boats where SK30 “Pani” with Janne Nystedt stood as unbeatable winner before Int 5m “Saga” after the series 1-2-1.
In September, it was time for KSSS Indian Heat by Aruba to establish itself as a season final for keelboat racing in Stockholm. This year’s regatta saw twenty participants
Tight racing round the bouys in the Open Swedish Championship for ORCi at Sandhamnsregattan.
The name giving ceremony for the club’s brand new RS Quest started in a humble style.
fighting with up to 16 m/s wind speed on Baggensfjärden, it was also fun to have Scottish Corby 37 “Aurora” in the fleet. They came to Sweden from Scotland in June to sail the ÅF Offshore Race (ÅFOR) but were hit by engine wreckage during the last transport to Stockholm and were able to borrow an outboard engine to be able to sail ÅFOR. Afterwards the boat was left in Sweden for repairs and the crew took the opportunity to return to KSSS in Saltsjöbaden and participate in this year’s Indian Heat. They made a strong effort in the harsh winds and became a total third despite has never sailed on the shifty Baggensfjärden.
The October Cup ends the open part of CSC racing season, which is organized in collaboration with Sune Carlsson Boatyard and Leif Carlsson who also was responsible for this year’s best regatta dinner! New for the year was that the FarEast 28R class joined the regatta together with J/70, Express and Starboat.
The KSSS racing season ends traditionally with our Club Championship (KM) which for the first time for seniors sailed as a sprint race in J/70, we would have done so already last year but in the absence of wind, KM 2018 was cancelled. After 16 races with eight teams, the Lundqvist brothers stood with Andrea Lundqvist at the helm as superior winners after winning all six races.
In the 2020 season, we will see a number of changes in CSC’s arrangement where eg. The Saltsjöbads Regatta is removed from CSC events and instead becomes a regatta for dinghies under Training Committee. We are looking forward to arrange a Pre-World Championship for 12mR during the Sandhamns Regatta, European Championshops for Starboat in early September and continue collaboration within KSSS to develop sailing for young people and female sailors.
The main purpose of the Offshore Racing Committee is to promote and develop offshore racing within KSSS and conduct first-class international events.
