Gotland Runt: Line honours for “Kraken”, German boats in with a chance of a podium finish

It wasn’t just Kiel Week that suffered from light winds this year. The Swedish summer classic, Gotland Runt, also featured its fair share of slow-going sailing. That’s why, although no record was set this year, there was still a fast trimaran to celebrate as ‘First Ship Home’. The Ocean 50, skippered by Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, completed the course on Sunday afternoon – following a three-hour delay to the start – in 1 day, 5 hours, 31 minutes and 20 seconds. This secured them Line Honours as early as Tuesday morning.

Gotland Runt: second postponement in the race’s history

The start of the Gotland Runt was a bit of a struggle this year, but race director Kristina Wiktander didn’t let the light winds rattle her. Despite the very light conditions, she had decided to go ahead with the starts as planned following the delay. At first, it looked as though the boats would be sailing at a standstill and the prospects didn’t look promising, but the decision soon proved to be the right one: the wind steadily picked up during the starts, which took place at 15-minute intervals.

Stefan Rahm, club director of the host Royal Swedish Yacht Club (KSSS) and also known as a match racer, admitted after the starts: “It was an uneasy feeling when we had to postpone the start again this year. These were not easy decisions. But I think we made absolutely the right ones.” The start of the Gotland Runt had also been postponed back in 2025. On that occasion, in stormy conditions, it was the first time this had ever happened since the race’s debut in 1937.

Gradually, throughout the day, the first challengers began to catch up with “Kraken”. The majority of the fleet was still at sea on Tuesday afternoon. The Gotland Runt is sailed using the Swedish SRS handicap system as well as the ORC class. However, the predominantly light conditions this year did not allow for a new race record, even though “Kraken” reached top speeds of 30 knots at times.

The ‘Black Jack’ record for the Gotland Runt stands

The 100-foot maxi “Black Jack” continues to hold the record, who had completed the race around Gotland last year in 22 hours and 4 minutes at an average speed of 14.24 knots. The speed record for multihull boats also remained unbroken this year. This record is held by the “HiQ”, which completed the course in 2008 at an average speed of 14.38 knots. The ‘Kraken’ achieved an average speed of just under 12 knots.

The crew were unable to realise the Tris’s full speed potential during the repeated periods of light winds “In light winds, a multihull isn’t much faster than a monohull. We had some fantastic stretches at high speed, but also too many sections where there simply wasn’t enough wind,” said Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, summing up the Gotland Runt.

For Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, the race also marked a return to a place steeped in strong personal memories. In the early 2000s, he took part in the Archipelago Raid and fell in love with the Stockholm archipelago. “It’s a fantastic feeling to be back here and to experience it all again.”

"The Stockholm archipelago is a unique place for sailing. We’d love to come back and break the record.” Thibaut Vauchel-Camus

Among the classic yachts on the Visby route, the “Princess Svanevit” was the first to cross the finish line. A few hours later, the “Ballad” crossed the finish line and is now expected to claim victory in its class based on calculated time.

“Jajo” takes line honours in the monohull class, “Hinden” well on course for silver

In the monohull class, the VO 65 “Jajo” from the Netherlands, skippered by Alex Laing, took Line Honours. “Jajo” has therefore also won the traditional “Nirvana Trophy” for the fastest monohull on the course. As of Tuesday afternoon, it was still unclear who would ultimately win the Gotland Runt on handicap and calculated time. There is still plenty of activity on the regatta course, with very different wind conditions affecting the boats in various sections.

In the “Jajo” Class A, Jonas Hallberg’s JPK 10.50 “Hinden” (Kieler Yacht-Club), which had been leading the race, was in second place by early Tuesday evening. Skipper Jonas Hallberg reported at around 7.30 pm on Tuesday evening, with some 30 nautical miles to go to the finish: “We’re sailing at about seven knots, so we’ve still got four or five hours to go. It’s been a great race so far and we’re very pleased with our performance up to this point. We can’t beat the Volvo 65 now. It didn’t hit a lull at the end like we did, but well, there’s nothing we can do about that.”

"Luca Mayer did a brilliant job of steering us through the lulls, and Luca Leidholdt put in an absolutely world-class performance to re-lashed our Code Zero Lock; without that, we’d be much further back right now." Jonas Hallberg

Not far behind “Hinden”, Hasso Hoffmeister’s Akilaria 950 “Whiteout” (Kieler Yacht-Club) was also heading for the finish line off Sandhamn. It was last calculated to be in sixth place in Class B. Click here on tracking for the Gotland Runt. The live, updated results for all classes can be found here. In the ORC overall standings on Tuesday evening, Hanno Ziehm’s Marten 49 “Moana” was even in first place after crossing the finish line.