THE BALTIC LAP · LEG 3 · BEING SAILED NOW
Mariehamn → Kemi: up the Gulf of Bothnia
From the Åland Islands north through the Sea of Bothnia, round the mark off Umeå, and on up the Bothnian Bay to Kemi, near the top of the Baltic. The narrowest part is the Kvarken between Umeå and Vaasa, full of islands and shallows: the straight line is not always the way.
- Umeå
- Kemi
Every skipper sails the same boat, ELEONORA, a 30 ft one-design cruiser, in real time in today's real wind. Set her course and sails, close the page: the server sails her on until your next order.
The places now
| Place | Boat | To the leg's finish |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇱🇻 Besbail | 151.9 NM |
| 2 | 🇱🇻 Elvīra | 157.0 NM |
| 3 | 🇱🇻 NICOLE | 157.2 NM |
| 4 | 🇵🇱 FUNIA | 157.5 NM |
| 5 | 🇪🇸 Pickwickian | 161.9 NM |
| 6 | 🇫🇷 Black Duck | 163.6 NM |
| 7 | 🇵🇱 KAROL-Zatoka Puck | 164.2 NM |
| 8 | 🇮🇹 MASOPHONE | 164.7 NM |
| 9 | 🇵🇱 PAOLO · 7434 | 164.9 NM |
| 10 | 🇮🇹 ANTO | 164.9 NM |
1101 boats · places by the straight distance to the next mark, then mark to mark to the leg's finish, as in the offshore races · the full table in the race window.
Along the way
The cards that pop up in the race as you sail past — the places, their lights and their history.
Umeå THE CITY OF BIRCHES
After the great fire of 1888 the town was rebuilt with avenues of birches as fire-breaks — “the city of birches”.
Umeå University (1965) made it the largest city of Norrland; it was European Capital of Culture in 2014.
To the south-west lies the High Coast (Höga Kusten), a UNESCO site: the land here still rises from the sea close to a centimetre a year since the ice age.
Across the Kvarken to the east lies Vaasa — the shortest crossing of the Gulf of Bothnia, some 80 km; a ferry links the two.
Kemi THE TOP OF THE BALTIC
The northernmost waters of the Baltic: the Bothnian Bay freezes over every winter and the ports are kept open by icebreakers.
The icebreaker Sampo (1960), once of the Finnish state fleet, takes visitors out from Kemi to break the ice in winter.
The SnowCastle, built anew every winter since 1996, is the largest snow fort in the world.
The Kemijoki, Finland’s longest river (550 km), reaches the sea here; the water of the bay is nearly fresh — barely salt at all.
Mariehamn THE TOWN OF THE GRAIN RACERS
Mariehamn, founded in 1861 and named after a Russian empress, was home to the last great sailing-ship fleet: Gustaf Erikson's windjammers raced grain from Australia into the 1940s.
The four-masted barque Pommern lies in the harbour as she sailed; the maritime museum beside her keeps the logs.
The legs of the lap
- Rīga → Kalmar
- Kalmar → Mariehamn
- Mariehamn → Kemi
- Kemi → Helsinki
- Helsinki → Rīga