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I had the honour to experience the Archipelago Raid as a journalist and I saw an incredible adventure. Thirty-one teams, representing eleven countries, lined up for this extreme challenge on a F18 beach cat. During five days and four nights, they faced all kind of sailing conditions and navigational brain-racking through a breath-taking archipelago between Sweden and Finland. In my opinion, this area is an European secret of mother nature. It was gorgeous.

The competitors had to deal with tiredness, damage to the equipment and painful muscles. After about four hundred nautical miles through 100.000 islands and rocks, two third of the fleet finished the Archipelago Raid 2006. Local Magnus Woxén and his Irish crew Damian Foxall, both members of Team Ericsson in the Volvo Ocean Race, took the victory.

My first article has already been published in Zeilen. The editorial staff was impressed by the beautiful pictures of Thierry Martinez and upgraded the article to a cover story. A picture of the Dutch entry Gunnar Larsen and Gerhard van Geest decorates the cover! The second article will be published in the next edition of CATmagazine, which will come out in Fall.