Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand
What an exciting expo opportunity – to meet people in Marstrand during the über cool sail racing event Match Cup Sweden with the M32 catamarans sailed by some of the best competitive sailors in the world. And to be assigned the dock spot next to these mean machines. Kept me busy all morning just sitting there watching the action.
The M32 cats are insane...all carbon, high-performance, one-design multihull. Each of the two hulls - weighs only 82 kg and features increased forward buoyancy to reduce nose-diving. The boat weighs 510 kg and sails around with 52 square meters of sails – a very high ratio in terms of sail to weight.
Torqeedo and Swedish agent KGK Motors were here to promote electric sailing in the exhibition area and we were here with them to showcase our installation yes, we had many curious visitors onboard during these days. Here is what they realized...
...looking down into the same room before and after the new installation: Apart from the environmental benefits, the silence, and the reliability...the gain of clean extra space with an electric pod solution underneath the hull and only the cable coming into the batteries is overwhelmingly obvious. Easily compared to the greasy fossil fuel engine and, filling up another space, a stinking, tank, tubes, and other unpleasant stuff.
We also showcased other climate-friendly things onboard...like solar oven-cooked scrambled eggs and carrots. Mmm...a few drops of olive oil on top can't go wrong,..right?
...no it couldn't. Thomas who re-installed our new electric pod engine in Skärhamn earlier was representing Torqeedo in their exhibition tent close by and came sneaking around our boat as soon as he smelled sun-cooked scramble eggs haha...
The Musto team said "thanks we already had breakfast" before they went out to the races for the day...
...and they won a race right in front of Jontefonden! Too bad our solar oven scrambled eggs couldn't take credit for that beautiful victory.
Marstrand was at its absolute best the entire week and the audience enjoyed the races close at hand of the race course and beneath the renown Carlsten's Fortress.
The Match Cup host and media team invited us up to the speaker's booth for a short live interview for the audience between two races. We talked about our 100% Sun Wind Water project, the long journey, sailing electric and cooking with solar beams, etc. Of course, we invited the audience down to our boat for a demo and some sun-grilled carrots...
Everything on display – the electric installation, the microplastic trawl, the solar panels, the solar oven, the plastic waste container we use for plastic debris picked up along the way.
Two heroes helping us with the sealing of our shore power charger (long story). Jennie from the Swedish Sea Rescue Society watched over our little semi-formal procedure and holds on to the "official seal-plyer".
The plyer arrived in a package earlier the same day from Oslo (even a longer story...). We will get back to that story one day and post it on our blog as well:-)
A victory for optimistic kids and a female sail racing team
While the grown-ups were wandering around Marstrand or checking the races, Swedish Sailing Federation arranged activities and races for young sailors. Some of them came to visit us to check out the microplastic trawl and our solar oven.
We met with the Swedish Sailing Federation's General Secretary Eva Marie Bjursell to hear more about her federation's educational project "Optimist For The Ocean" (Optimist för Havet) in which they engage their young members and sailing school participants to collect plastic debris from the sea...to use for the production of new Optimist dinghies:-)
A quick interview with Eva Marie Bjursell, General Secretary at the Swedish Sailing Federation.
A victory project for Optimist För Havet – This dinghy is produced from plastic debris picked up py young sailors and engineered into a Optimist by Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.
Mahatma Gandhi said "If we want to change the world, start with the children". What an honor to welcome this gang onboard our climate statement sailor!
Did you hear Eva Marie Bjursell mention how the Swedes in "Team Anna" were doing in the Match Cup? Here they are being hugged coming back from a successful race indeed...
...and here they are again after a successful week indeed. A victory for Team Anna and for female sail racin. Article in Swedish and Photo: Mynewsdesk
