Photos by Trond Teigen – KNS.

On Friday, 19 August 2023, the Bagdad2 team, led by Borre Hekk Paulsen, took the highly coveted Half Ton Classics Cup with a nearly perfect sheet after 10 races.

Sailing a 1985 Berret-Finot design that went through a significant refit by its previous owners, the team left only the long-distance race and one windward-leeward race to her competitors. Two other Norwegian Halftonners, RAMPAGE and KING ONE, completed the podium.

The Royal Norwegian Yacht Club (KNS) and the Half Ton Class of Norway, in close cooperation with the Hankø Yacht Club, organized a perfect event for a total of 33 teams, with 3 teams from Belgium and 1 team from the UK.

The true spirit of the Half Ton Classics Cup reigned all through the race week, especially during the final prizegiving, where a heart-warming ode to and standing ovation for Martin Kamperhaug – the initiator of the Halftonner revival in Norway – received his weight (and more) in champagne, followed by the remittance of the Half Ton True Spirit Trophy. All the teams unanimously chose to award this trophy to the father-mother-daughter-son team aboard HUGIN.

Meanwhile, team CONCORDE won the Corinthian Trophy for being the best team without any professional on board, and the women of MIDNIGHT X won the All Female Team prize.

The atmosphere during the entire week was so good that plans are already being made to return to Hankø for the next edition, perhaps to Marstrand or Sandhamn (SWE) in a few years’ time, when the Baltic Halftonner fleet will be in full force again.