Wednesday, September 30, 2020

KSSS Repeats as Swedish Sailing League Champion

 J/70 sailboats in Sweden

(Västerås, Sweden)- With consistent sailing of an experienced crew, the KSSS Team (Royal Swedish YC) managed to take home the Allsvenskan gold racing in their fleet of match J/70 one-design sailboats. A second place in the last regatta of the series in Västerås was enough for the Stockholmers to take their fifth gold in six years!

Sailing for KSSS this weekend was skipper Hedvig Liljegren and crew of Carl Leuckfeld, Fredrik Liljegren and Niklas Edler.

"This was the plan from our club- go to Västerås and, hopefully, take home the gold! It has been a fantastic weekend, with a great event and great conditions. We sailed consistently, but also made some unnecessary mistakes," said Niklas Edler. "But it is a bit sad that we missed the victory in Västerås. We had a golden opportunity before the final race. But, were locked in at the start by Ö-vik, who got off to a flying start. Although we should have recovered well, we were having a debate on our boat and made some bad decisions. Had we stayed cool; we could have won. But, Halmstad sailing club are good sailors, it was a really good team that won."

Taking the silver in the overall standings was GKSS team. They were leading the series before the weekend, but a poor showing in the finale dropped them to second. The most amazing, rocket-like rise in the standings was, not surprisingly, the winners in the Västerås finale- Halmstad SS. Prior to the finale they were 5th overall and managed only a 10th in the previous regatta in Örnsköldsvik. Their impressive win in the finale vaulted them to the bronze step on the podium! Rounding out the top five were Hjuvik SS in fourth place and the newcomer Ekoln SC from Uppsala in fifth position.

Sailing for the Halmstad SS team were the experienced Hellekant family; three of them! On board were Christoffer, Rebecca, and Anders Hellekant. Their fourth was a close family friend- Petter Norrgren. They were an impressive team; this weekend, they won half of their races, e.g. eight out of 16 total! Coincidentally, KSSS had the same result.  For more Swedish J/70 Sailing League informationAdd to Flipboard Magazine.