I
saw Raket (rocket) for the first time in the early
1990s. She stood on a solid, old, obviously
homebuilt trailer with massive truck wheels. One
of the tyres had a puncture and that was probably
the reason that she had been left standing there.
The rig had been parked at a crossroad on a
small village road. The sight was both striking and sad.
This beautiful, sleek hull that promised so much
pleasure, stood there abandoned and open to the
elements, with a tragic future most likely ahead. On that
occasion, I didn’t follow the heart’s voice (the one that
makes you get into so much fun and trouble) because
reason told me I should first take care of my other boats.
A while later, though, someone else did. Raket had
left the crossroads and continued her uncertain route
to a quay in Ormingelandet, on the Stokholm
archipelago, when Ellen Ridderstolpe sailed past in her
40 Square Metre Skerry Cruiser, Fjäril IV (Butterfly).
When she saw Raket in the distance along the shore,
she would have slammed on the brakes if Skerry
Cruisers had them, but she instead tacked and headed
straight towards the quay. Hopping ashore, she
decided that she couldn’t leave this amazing boat to
stand there abandoned. She wrote a note and attached
it to the boat with her name, number and a short but
clear message: “Do you want to sell this boat?”
The next step she took was to try to find out how to
handle such lost property if the owner wasn’t located.
Happily, though, and just a few days later, the owner
called. Before she knew it, Ellen was the proud new
owner of a wreck parked in the middle of nowhere.
From her farm in Södertälje, Ellen fetched a tractor
and together with a group of friends, loaded Raket
onto a better trailer and headed homewards. With the
speed limit set at 30kmh for a transport like this, the
winding backroads was the only option. The journey
took nine hours, a mere blink of an eye in the life of a
96-year-old. Raket had a new home, but things weren’t
Above: Owner
Mats Arrhénborg
enjoys Raket’s
20-plus knot
cruising speed
