Sven Yrvind
Sven Yrvind (born April 22, 1939 in Gothenburg, Sweden as Sven Lundin) is a Swedish sailor, boat builder, and writer. He is famous for sailing alone across oceans in tiny boats of his own design.
Sailing
Yrvind has made several ocean crossings in his tiny boats. In 1980, Yrvind rounded Cape Horn in 'Bris II', a 20'/5.90m boat of his own design, alone and in the middle of winter, a record for smallest boat to round the Cape. This achievement won Yrvind the 1980 Royal Cruising Club medal for seamanship. In the Roaring Forties he allegedly collided with a whale.
Boat Design
Yrvind designs and builds the boats he sails. The boats lack all forms of electronic communications equipment.
- Yrvind built his first boat 'Bris I' in his mothers basement 1971-1972. The boat's size was determined by the size of the basement: length 6.00 meter, width 1.72m, depth 0.40/0.90m.
- 'Bris II' was built 1976-1978 with the dimensions length 5.90 meter, width 2.40m, depth 1.40m.
- A later boat, 'Yrvind', at an ambitious 4.1m, eventually turned out to be too small and too slow to make major ocean passages in cold waters.
- Sven's latest build is 'Yrvind 1/2', a 4.8 meter design inspired in part by Matt Layden's "Paradox". 'Yrvind 1/2' is built of divinycell, fiberglass, carbon fiber and epoxy. Sven set sail in 'Yrvind 1/2' for Florida on August 11th, 2011.
Books
Yrvind's three books, "With Bris round Cape Horn" (with Anders Öhman 1985), "Bris" (1990) and "The Constructor" (2003), are currently in the process of being translated into English.
Inventions
Yrvind is the inventor of the Bris sextant, a small, angle-measuring instrument used in navigation.
External links
- Furled Sails Podcast Interview Part 1
- Furled Sails Podcast Interview Part 2
- Sven Yrvind's Official Site
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