08/09/2026
Many classic boats at HSS have been sailing longer than any of us have been alive.
We see them at the harbour. We race alongside them. We admire their long overhangs, wooden decks and lines drawn in another era.
But who created that world?
One of the people behind it was Tore Holm — Swedish yacht designer, boatbuilder and sailor, born in 1896. He won four Olympic medals, designed some of Scandinavia’s most remarkable yachts and spent his life at the intersection of sailing, craftsmanship and engineering.
His story might have remained simply another chapter in sailing history.
Except that one of our own HSS sailors decided to follow it.
Tapani Koskela, who sails the Six Metre Silène III, spent around twenty years researching Holm’s life — through archives, books, letters and conversations with the people connected to him.
The result is I Have Won, I Have Lost.
More than a biography, it is a journey into the world in which Scandinavian yacht racing and yacht design were taking shape.
And for us at HSS, that world is not quite as distant as it sounds.
Some of its traces can still be found among the classic yachts we sail and see at our own harbour.
Perhaps that is what makes the book so fascinating: after reading it, an old yacht is no longer simply an old yacht.
It becomes part of a story.
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HSS is now collecting a list of sailing books written by our members. If you are the author or know a book, fill in the form. (Link in stories)
