Swedish Championship 2010

The first weekend in October each year it is always the Swedish Championship speed windsurfing in Kungsbacka Fjord. 2010 was no exception. Oddly enough, the wind has always showed up in time just to those days.


This year, however, gave the forecast at a highly unusual southeasterly winds. 36 Swedes and a Dutch guy showed up early on Saturday morning. While we rigged it was blowing around 20-25 knots but when the course was readyvthe wind was out.

Marcus Richardson from Växjö

After lunch we launched a first heat. Almost no wind,  but when it was five minutes left came a gust of about 20 knots and the entire starting field disappeared down towards Kalvø in one wing beats. It looked more like the start of a long-distace race. The wind was over 10-minute intermission, and about as far into the second heat. Each sailor caught in other words, only with a single real run per heat. For one heat to be approved must be 25% of the sailors to be over 28 knots of average speed. There was some concern that we would not do this in four juniors with BIC Techno-boards with daggers also participated in the speed class. The concern was unwarranted, and we passed that limit a wide margin. After the first day Marcus Richardson and Johan Gelander was in second place.

Anders Björkqvist waiting for the gusts with great patience

Before the second day promised weather forecast gusts of up 30 knots. The wind was a bit more than the first day, and made it possible to sail back relatively easily without having to swim too much.


Half of the field ran speedboards of about 85 liters. In the fourth race was the competition's best wind gust of about 30 knots that lasted decently long. I did some runs on my Carbon Art SP44 cm speed board. We where about 7 sailors had speedruns over 33 knots.

Eight sailors were on top 2 during the 7 heats, but given that we could run the full seven heats so the end result was still fair.

Swedish Championship was also a race in World Cup Speed Windsurfing, so now we have again a lot of Swedes in the international rankings. I ended up 4th which is my best place in the Swedish Championship for many many years...!