The yacht ‘America’, the first winner of what is now the Americas Cup, is perhaps the most famous yacht of all time, at least by name. Races have been held in her name since 1851. Her hull survived in the USA until the 1940s when a snow storm destroyed her in her boat house when it collapsed.

‘Vanadis’, built in 1868, is her nearest existing descendent. At 20m on the waterline ‘Vanadis’ is a little smaller than ‘America’ which was 27m. Still there is every evidence that the Swedish builder of ‘Vanadis’ was influenced by the success of her predecessor.

‘Vanadis’ was designed by Agersgoff for Edvard Cederlund -a successful brewer of ‘Cederlunds Caloric Punch’. This is a sweet alcoholic aperitif still available in Sweden. Cederlund used the schooner 'Vanadis' as a cruising and racing yacht and is thought to have entertained the King of Sweden onboard. ‘Vanadis’ was named after the Scandinavian god of love.

Following this the boat had a career training officers and NCO in the Swedish Navy and as the flagship the first ever Sailing School for Woman in the 1930s. She was renamed ‘Valdivia-van-Alton’ by a German owner in the 1950s and she was used as a houseboat ending up as a near wreck. She was rescued and re-built and used successfully as a charter boat in the 1970s (until 2002).

In 2003 she was bought by her present owner who returned her to the name ‘Vanadis’ and restored her with tender loving care to the beautiful condition you can see. My full story of ‘Vanadis’ was published in the June 2005 edition of ‘Classic Boat’ Magazine.

In this photograph she is sailing in 2004 in the Western Baltic near Kiel and her new home on the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (Kiel Canal). 'Vanadis' receives the tender loving care required to bring her as close as possible to the way she looked in 1868.