Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

After leg 3 on Day 2 of the Archipelago Raid, Ellen MacArthur and Greg Homann have made it to tenth place in the fleet.

After only a couple of hours of sleep, they left Lidö in the archipelago of Stockholm at 03.30 to head out into the Baltic Sea towards Åland, an area full of small islands between Sweden and Finland. In light south-easterly winds, at around eight knots, the teams made a few big tacks over the Baltic Sea towards Rödhamn in Åland.

The warm weather that Sweden has seen in the past month is now gone and it is cold and humid,  The water in the Baltic Sea is only 13 degrees Celsius so many of the teams arriving in Åland were tired, wet and cold. In the light winds and open sea brokerage is not yet an issue although the Swedish boat Klinger with Thommy Sundström and Markus Lagerqvist onboard retired this morning after they broke their spinnaker pole yesterday.

The fleet is now heading northeast towards Lappo in the north-eastern part of the Åland Archipelago. They will navigate a number of checkpoints before arriving later on tonight, having sailed around 80-100 nautical miles. As this archipelago is littered with rocks and islands there are many navigational options to choose from and the rainy afternoon will demand good tactics from the sailors. In the light winds, the crews will probably have to execute a bit of the dreaded paddling that the Archipelago Raid is notorious. Early tomorrow morning the boats will set sail even further east towards Nagu in the Finnish archipelago.