I grew up with sailing. In my family we had a small mahogany coastal cruiser. I learnt to sail the hard way when my father left me with the steering watching Björn Borg playing the Wimbledon in the cabin.

In my early twenties I bought my first boat, a 12m, 1.8m wide Skärgårdskryssare from 1928. An excellent and beautiful boat. Later I switched to a long-keeled steady Laurin 28 which I sailed across the Baltic several times.

Over the last 20 years, I have been sailing a Linjett 35. I have sailed the Mediterranean, crossed the Irish Sea but I do not yet have any experience of cross ocean sailing. Since I bought my Swan 51 this summer, I am planning to cross the Atlantic next summer and eventually the Pacific the year after. I have a special relationship to the Whitbread since my stepfather Sven-Erik Sahlin was a boat builder. Among many other boats he built, the Swedish entry, which participated in the Whitbread 1979 (although not very successfully due to unfortunate circumstances). I have plenty of memories running around the boat builders as a small boy and listening to the Swedish Queen when she inaugurated the boat.