Sven Yrvind (born 22 April 1939 in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

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 Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

in 'Bris II', a 20'/5.90m boat of his own design, alone and in the middle of winter, a record for the smallest boat ever to round the Cape. This achievement won Yrvind the 1980

Royal Cruising Club The Royal Cruising Club (RCC) is a British yacht club founded in London in 1880 to support leisure sailing. It is most widely known for the series of pilotage books produces under the auspices of the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation, a ...

medal for seamanship. In the

Roaring Forties The Roaring Forties are strong westerlies, westerly winds that occur in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40th parallel south, 40° and 50th parallel south, 50° south. The strong eastward air currents are caused by ...

he allegedly collided with a whale.

Boat design

Yrvind designs and builds the boats he sails. *Yrvind built his first boat 'Bris I' in his mother’s basement 1971-1972. The boat's size was determined by the size of the basement: length 6.00 metres, width 1.72 m, depth 0.40/0.90 m. *'Bris II' was built 1976–1978 with the dimensions length 5.90 metres, width 2.40 m, depth 1.40 m. *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. *In 2008 Sven started work on 'Yrvind.com', a 4.8 metre design inspired in part by Matt Layden's "Paradox". 'Yrvind.com' is built of divinycell, fiberglass, carbon fiber and epoxy. Sven set sail in 'Yrvind.com' for Martinique on 11 August 2011. He chose the unusual name 'Yrvind.com' in the hope that anyone spotting him on AIS would be curious enough to visit his website,Sven Yrvind: The Yrvind.com
/ref> where he encouraged them to report his position - thus being able to keep the world updated on his progress, despite not having any long-range communications equipment on board. Three and a half months after setting out, 'Yrvind.com' made Martinique, on 26 November 2011. *In early 2018 Sven completed the construction of 'Exlex' ("Outlaw"). It was 5.76 metres long with a 1.04 metre beam. On 30 May 2018, at 79 years of age, Sven set out in her from

Dingle Dingle ( or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula (known in Irish as ''Corca Dhuibhne''), it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

for

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

,Sven Yrvind sets sail towards New Zealand
'' Follow My Challenge'', 30 May 2018. Retrieved on 12 November 2018. which he had hoped to reach sometime in March 2019. Unfortunately, he was forced to abandon his attempt at the beginning of July, and sail to

Porto Santo Porto Santo Island () is a Portuguese island and municipality northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean; it is the northernmost and easternmost island of the archipelago of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Europe an ...

due to design flaws that made Exlex too unstable, slow, and hard to handle.Lonely navigator arrives at Porto Santo by micro-boat
'' Madeira Island News'', 10 July 2018. Retrieved on 12 November 2018. Yrvind has announced he will design an improved model and make another attempt. *After returning to Sweden, Sven started constructing 'Exlex Minor'. Construction was finished during the summer of 2020, and on June 30 Sven set sail from

Ålesund Ålesund () is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The town is the administrative centre of Ålesund Municipality. The centre of the town of Ålesund lies on the islands of Hessa, Aspøya, Ålesund, Asp� ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It quickly became apparent that the boat was unable to properly carry the provisions for the trip, making progress slow and rendering Exlex Minor unable to sail high enough into the wind. Sven was forced to abandon his original plans and sail to

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

as straight as he could. *Having set out in his old Exlex from

in June 2021, in early July 2021 Sven reached

Horta Horta may refer to: People * Horta (surname), a list of people Places * Horta, Africa, an ancient city and former bishopric in Africa Proconsularis, now in Tunisia and a Latin Catholic titular see * Horta, Azores, Portugal, a municipality a ...

in the

. From here he plans to continue west to the

Sargasso Sea The Sargasso Sea () is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. Unlike all other regions called seas, it is the only one without land boundaries. It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Oc ...

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. "Den unge, den gamle och havet : Över Atlanten i en Vega" (with Thomas Grahn 2012)

Inventions

Yrvind is the inventor of the Bris sextant, a small, angle-measuring instrument used in navigation.

Youtube channel

Yrvind has a YouTube channel where he regularly posts videos about his endeavours. In 2023 the videos are mostly about building his newest boat.

Honours

Yrvind Island in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

is named after Sven Yrvind.

References

External links

Furled Sails Podcast Interview Part 1

Furled Sails Podcast Interview Part 2

Sven Yrvind's Official Site

Sven Yrvind's YouTube channel