3794nm

Here´s some pics from the 2015 season in no particular order...

Waiting for weather at Klinthavn, Møhn, Denmark. The Marina was full when we arrived as the weather had already picked up. Harbour master assigned us a berth at the fishing basin of the port. I believe we got one of the most sheltered spots in the harbour.

Passing Gibraltar and Europa Point. Krister on the wheel.

Leaving Tallinn, Estonia after Helsinki Tallinna Race.

Seanna at Marienhamn, our first port in Finland. At that time we had covered some 3500nm since departure from Valencia. Dinghy got appropriate stickers, T/T SEANNA sticker inside the transom to comply with the law in some countries...

At Atlantic after departure from Lagos, Portugal

One hour to first race start with new boat.

Pretty much hitting the targets...

Enter the Baltics, bye bye tidal Europe. We were parked in Brunnsbuttel Marina, ships passed maybe 40m distance from our berth.

Vlieland Marina was 100% full and we were lucky to get a berth. Nice Marina, too bad we did not have time stay longer.

Seanna at her home berth at Skifferholmen, Helsinki. We almost never use the spray hood. That is why we got a boom tent made, it still needs some adjustment and more securing points. Next season will show whether it will turn out to be practical... 

Sails changed, anchor and extra cruising stuff removed. Ready to depart for the start line of Helsinki Tallinna Race 2015.

Finnish Summer.

At Oostende Food festival. Perfect day to be at Oostende. We stayed for one night at Royal North Sea Yacht Club, very nice marina, a bit shallow but near the entrance it was deep enough for us.

Kiel Canal, Holtenau Locks.

Chief Mate arrives :) Captain very happy

Home sweet home

Bay of Biscay

Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland.

Departing Cartagena, Spain

Hull got  some TLC after arrivla to Marienhamn

Our Yacht Clubs private island Andø

Hull cleans up nicely after 6 months idle at Marina Real Juan Carlos, Valencia. Nautix A4 T.Speed seems like a good choice for anti-fouling.

Marine Del Este. A marina well worth a visit!

Heavy traffic under the bow at coast of Portugal.

Brunssbuttel

Elbe- River, Approaching Kiel Canal with the current.

Kiel Canal, Holtenau Locks.

Heading for Tallinn, Full speed under Code Zero

Taking fuel at Ibiza, St. Antoni de Portmany

Helsingfors Segelsallskap club house terrace. De-Briefing.

No visit to Ibiza without checking the original Cafe Del Mar. Have to say they have done a better job with the CDM Singapore.

Hull after HP wash at Valencia, Spain

Wind picking up at HTR 2015

Ready for the long trip to Finland from Spain

Scheveningen at sunset. Headwear sponsor Superyellow Flag flying of course.

Testing the new boom tent.

Lunch at Tarifa while we were waiting on weather at Gibraltar.

Marina Alcadeisa, La linea, Spain

HTR 2015

Seanna docked for winter

Seanna is out of the water. It was very shallow where the boat was lifted. See the mud marks on the keel and rudder. The sea level was -30cm that day, normally it is +10-20 so it should go fine when the boat goes back in.

Now we have some 5 months for maintenance and upgrades...

Parked inside on a new shiny trailer

Not too much extra on the sides

Last day of sailing for 2015. Cruising main wad already at North Sails for check and small repairs.

B&G Stuff

Beatiful day today. Should have been sailing.

Went to the boat anyway to do some small stuff here and there. Landed the liferaft as it is bit of an overkill in these waters, also the fractional S2 Spinnaker got a ticket to the storage..

Installed a bracket for the B&G V50 VHF wireless handset, H50. The bracket outside does not have inductive charging, that will be still done by the chart table. Battery life is 8+ hours so it is not a problem. Volume from the handset is surprisingly good.

B&G came out with an update for the Zeus2's. Installed it today. Main update/feature is the race panel and possibility to control H5000 CPU setting and Race Timer from the Zeus2.

The race panel and it's "zero burn" line seem like a good one for those starts where Expedition is not used. Below a video from "Start Line" screen and the virtual zero burn line moving towards the pinged line according to polar speed.

Tomorrow there is a boat show here in Helsinki, Uiva 2015, I think I go and take alook. They have the new Grand Soleil 39 in the water. Interesting to see how things have changed in 10 years:)

Helsinki Tallinna Race 2015

First Race for the boat that still haven't been on Finnish mainland:)

Helsinki Tallinna Race is one the biggest Regattas in Finland. This year 144 boats had signed up for the challenge. We sailed in the national LYS 1 Class, 40 boats competing. In addition there were LYS 2&3, Business-LYS, IRC and ORC -Classes. LYS being the biggest by far. IRC only had 5 boats in it, and ORC around 10, so what's the point? OK this weekend was very busy with other Regattas around the Baltics..

 We were able to gather a crew of 8, who came to the boat for the first time few hours before the start so no time for training this time, we just wing it and have fun while going as fast as possible:)

Wind on the start area was around 15-17 knots before the start and looked like an beam reach to the first mark. LYS class race was a chasing start and we had the third last start time, first start for all classes was at 18:00 and our start was 20:30. What happened maybe half an hour before our start was that wind dropped to below 10 knots for 1-1,5 hours. That probably had some effect on  our boatspeed in the archipelago.

Brief summary of the 41,6nm sailing over the pond puddle:

-Start with Code 0, reach to first mark
-Round the first mark wind shifted to almost running but due to the short leg we limped it to the 2. mark with the code 0 only.
-Rounding the mark 2 wind picked up and was good leg for code 0
-Mark 3, Helsinki Lighthouse. L/M Jib hoisted, Code didn't furl properly and "foredeck office" had take it down manually ie. partly furled. This costed us maybe 5 minutes as we couldn't get to the next layline to Mark 4 and drifted too much downwind. Trimming the Jib for optimal shape/power was at times challenging for the new crew in darkness. At open sea the weather was nice, slight chop slowed the fleet down a little bit.
-From open sea all the way to the finish line on Stbd Tack, switched to Code again west of island of Aegna, it worked for a while but then wind shifted again and Symmetric was required but due to new crew and almost complete darkness decision was made to just go with what we had up.

 Note: Crew beanies from our sponsor www.superyellow.fi

We finished the race at 18th, and were 13th fastest on average speed of all some 143 boats. OK results and the boat showed good potential. For the next race we fix the small issues, get a full crew of 10-12 and aim for the podium:)

 

Thanks for organizing Club and see you again next year!