Our Tapio Lehtinen Sailing Saving the Planet campaign consists of two back to back round the world races

We want to partner with companies offering a wide range of solutions on our way towards carbon neutral circular economy. It starts with my other go at the Golden Globe Race this September. After finishing as the fifth and last sailor with Asteria’s bottom covered with barnacles, I have some unfinished business. The Ocean Globe Race starting in Sept 2023 will be sailed with a young Finnish team. In addition to highlighting solutions for saving the climate and the oceans, I want to make sure that the Finnish ocean sailing legacy, dating back to the times of Erikson square riggers, will be taken further for the coming generations.

Crew

Skipper

Tapio Lehtinen is a sailor born in 1958 with a life long experience of sailing a wide variety of boats. Starting with an Optimist dinghy in 1965 his sailing career has included racing in dinghies and especially with his classic six metre built in 1936. In offshore sailing his CV includes 1982 Whitbread Round the World Race in 1982, Round Britain, Twostar, AZAB, Bermuda Race in addition to the various Gotland Runt and other races in the Baltic Sea. During the 2018 Golden Globe Race Tapio was disappointed to see the dramatically diminished numbers of birds, whales and other sea mammals in the oceans. This has lead him to use the media visibility of the coming races to increase the awareness of the different solutions for the environmental challenges which are being offered. Tapio is also a long time proponent of youth sailing and will sail the OGR with one of the youngest teams.

First Mate

Ville Norra is a 50 year old, six-metre racing friend and one of Tapio’s trusted adults onboard Galiana. He has sailing background from a variety of keelboats and offshore boats. Ville is both a very agile seaman when afloat and at the same time technically able to keep the systems of Galiana running. When the going gets tough, he’s the first one up in the rig and when it gets easy, he gets his guitar out.

No.	Name, Nationality	Sex, Age
1	Alexander von Flittner, Finnish	Male, 27
2	Anton Eklund, Finnish	Male, 26
3	Elia Koski, Finnish	Male, 27
4	Juho Sattanen, Finnish	Male, 28
5	Kaisla Jacoby, Finnish	Female, 20
6	Lassi Liimatainen, Finnish	Male, 29
7	Mauri De Meulder, Finnish	Male, 26
8	Mikko Hongell, Finnish	Male, 33
9	Pia Grönblom, Finnish	Female, 50
10	Tapio Lehtinen, Finnish	Male, 65
11	Viivi Moisio, Finnish	Female, 21
12	Ville Norra, Finnish	Male, 51

Galiana

Galiana, a 1970 Sparkman & Stephens designed Swan 55 yawl. In addition to being an early S&S Swan, she is probably the last design under RORC/CCA rules in the 40 years long lineage of Olin Stephens designed ocean racing yawls dating back to his breakthrough design Dorade in 1929. So, in our opinion she is as classy and classic as you can get. There is a major refit going on, the rig, sails, engine, electrics will be changed and the interior layout will be optimised for safe and comfortable sailing in the Southern Ocean.