Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Summer Nights in Bohuslän

Just stumbled across another entry in last month's group writing project Top Sailing Destination on the Planet. Which reminds me, if you do decide to participate in one of these group writing projects, please do send me an email to let me know about your post, otherwise I may not see it and it won't get reposted here.


Peter Gustafsson writes a blog called BLUR which is mainly in Swedish. But thankfully his post for this project, Summer nights in Bohuslän, is in English. First he considers some of the classic sailing destinations and races which, frankly, I thought more people might have chosen...
Antigua, Auckland, Newport, Perth, Sardinia, Sydney or Valencia? Closer to home is Cowes, La Trinité Sur Mer, Sandhamn or Marstrand? Or is it long stretches of downwind sailing from California to Hawaii or the legendary courses of Fastnet or Sydney Hobart?

But eventually he chooses one of his favorite places that he keeps coming back to...
Since I was a kid we’ve been cruising in the Bohuslän archipelago on the west coast of Sweden. A family of five spent over a month each summer exploring the thousands of island in a small 7 meter sailboat. When we grew up we ticked off all the party destinations; small fishing villages like Smögen and Fjällbacka that turn into never ending parties during the warm and light summer nights.

His post is mainly about a race through the Bohuslän archipelago...
Then I heard of a small double handed race, Bohusracet, that pretty much went through the whole archipelago in little more than 30 hours. At first it sounded like a crazy idea; to race 170NM shorthanded at night in some of the trickiest waters in the world. But after a while it grew on me. It might actually be the perfect combination of racing, endurance, navigation and the wonderful scenery that can only be found in Nordic summer nights.


And so it proved to be. Read the full story at Summer nights in Bohuslän which has many marvelous photos of the racing.

Thanks for contributing to our project Peter. It's not every day I get to use names like Bohuslän and Smögen and Strömstad on this blog. And let me just say Måseskär and Fjällbacka. And Hållö to you too.


5 comments:

Sam Chapin said...

Probably best yet. Look at that sky.

Tillerman said...

Also probably the furthest north of all the sailing destinations so far.

Actually I've been amazed at how many cool northerly places have been chosen for this project. Maine (twice I think), Michigan, Illinois, Lake Huron, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, Northern England...

Blur said...

The scenery is fantastic. But also dangerous. Here's a famous video from the Around Tjörn Race that goes through the same waters. This infamous passage was later named "Devils Hole" :-)

http://www.blur.se/2009/08/16/tjorn-runt-demolishon-derby/

Baydog said...

New Jersey........

Tillerman said...

New Jersey was certainly covered in a terrific post by yourself Baydog, but I don't consider it a "cool northerly" destination. It can be pretty damn hot in the summer. Come to think of it, I guess Illinois and Michigan are pretty toasty in the summer too.

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