It was a blast racing through Finland's southwest archipelago under oar power and sail with twenty-one boats all under 22 feet long with crews hailing from all over the world. The boats themselves were as varied as their crews but all were classics of one design or another. The German and Dutch sailors seemed to favor beautiful wooden Norwegian Fearings while the Hawaiians sailed a Shetland Islands Yole, one of two in the Raid. There were two Whitehall Spirits. The " Victoria" a 14' sailing model, sailed by the French team, Bertrand and Anne Chazarene was also the smallest boat in the fleet. The other was our Canadian team entry, a Whitehall Spirit 17 Expedition model.

Five of us made up the Canadian Whitehall crew including myself, Marie Hutchinson, Chris Nohr on still and Digital Video camera, plus Wim Kotze from Row Scandinavia traveling with his eight year old son Hampus. Wim supplied and operated our 20-foot RIB camera boat and also functioned as relief rower. We made new friends, had amazing experiences, shot hundreds of pictures and several hours of footage, which is being edited into a documentary film. To read the full account, see the pictures or raw video clips click here…