27
In 1940, a wealthy enthusiast and
Olympic bronze medalist, Sven Salen
revived the design competition concept
and he organised a competition through
Scandinavian sailing journals. The design
criteria were to design a boat which was
simple, affordable, sea kindly, provide
accommodation for three to four adult
crew, be capable of being built in wood
with an iron keel with a waterline length
of six metres, a beam of two metres, a
freeboard of half a metre, a sail area of
between 18 and 20 square metres and
be capable of mass production.
The Royal Swedish Sailing Club
endorsed the project promising to
build two boats to the winning entrant’s
design. Fifty eight entries were received,
but none were adjudged to completely
satisfy the design brief and therefore,
prizes were only awarded for second to
fifth places. The second and third place
prize was split between Knud Olsen from
Denmark for ‘Svane’ and M. Iversen from
Sweden for ‘Vega 2’.
The judging panel then devised a
completely new brief with a more precise
specification and a committee of three
was formed which decided to instruct a
contractor to collate the second and third
placed design submissions and to distil
their best features into a final design. The
contractor chosen was Tord Sunden who
haddesigned the small Real 15. Sunden’s
work was published in September 1941
when the world got its first glimpse of the
resulting Nordic Folkboat. This process
resulted in a bitter dispute as to who is
the Nordic Folkboat’s actual designer.
Is it the designers of Svane and Vega
2 or is it Tord Sunden who had come
up with the design compromise? After
considering the designs of Svane and
Vega 2, it seems that, amongst other
compromises, Sunden blended the front
end of Vega 2 with the aft end of Svane.
