Sail Number: S / 23
Type: Marconi cutter
Havsornen Specifications:
LOA: 53’0″ / 16.15m – LWL: 35’5″ / 10.82m – Beam: 11’9″ / 3.62m – Draft: 7’2” / 2.19m – Hull Number: – Designer: Tore Holm – Original Owner: – Current Owner: – Year Built: 1937 – Built By: Holms Bårvarv/Stockholm/SE – Hull Material: Mahogany on Oak – Gross Displacement: -Sail Area: 1,463 sq ft / 127.90 m² – Flag: Dutch.
Historical:
Her name ” Havsormen” means “Sea Eagle”
Sandeman comments www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
HAVSÖRNEN’s story, it is said, begins during a late 1930s afternoon sail aboard a Johan Anker-designed International Rule 10-Metre in the Swedish skærgårde: the myriad of small rocky islands among sounds that make sailing there so entrancing. There was a nice breeze and, as is such a vessel’s want, she was well heeled with the lee rail awash. The 10-Metre’s afterguard were Swedish yachting “royalty”, and her owner, paper industrialist Holger Nilsson, apparently began dreaming of a yacht with more stability but no less power. Handily, yacht designer and expert helmsman Tore Holm was one of that afterguard, along with another fine helmsman, Sven Salen, the inventor of the Genoa foresail. Holm was tasked by Nilsson with designing and building a more comfortable yacht. The result we now know as HAVSÖRNEN, but was launched as CITONA – and Salen raced her in the following season’s (1937) prestigious Round Gotland race, and won, of course.
That’s the story… The reality is most surely that they knew exactly what they were doing and that she was specifically conceived to win Round Gotland; after all, these were people who left little to chance.
The rating rule then increasingly bein
g used for Baltic long distance races, and originally in 1928 for the Cruising Club of America’s Bermuda Race, the ‘Bermuda Rule’, encouraged wholesome, beamy, hard-bilged offshore racer cruisers through the 1930’s to 1960s; latterly known as the CCA Rule – and Holm worked it to the maximum. HAVSÖRNEN is such a strikingly beautiful yacht to most eyes nowadays, so it may be surprising to learn that her debut engendered much comment about her looks, so noticeably different were they to the more traditional and ubiquitous low-freeboard Skerry Cruisers and International Rule metric class boats so well known in Swedish waters.
Restored:
1991-93 Per Norberg, Stockholm/SE
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner: (1937-1940) – Holger A.E. Nilsson (name CITONA)
Owner: (1940-1943) – Sten E. Holgersson
Owner: (1943-1951) – K.E. Hedborg (renamed MIRA II)
Owner: (1951-1968) – Nils Nessim, Matt Nessim (renamed SIESTA)
Owner: (1970-1974) – Anders “Aje” G Philipson (renamed PHIESTA)
Owner: (1974-1982) – Lövstedt family
Owner: (1982-1999) – Peter & Tony Carlen (renamed HAVSÖRNEN)
Owner: (1999-2016) – Charles Langereis, Holland
Owner: (2016) – Philippe Fabre, France
Comments
Carl Holgersson – November 29, 2020
Hello! Nice to see that my grandfather’s (Holger Nilsson)Citona still is going strong. Best regards, Carl