Sulkavan Suursoudut (Sulkava Rowing Race)

The course

Church boats and fours start from under the Hakovirta bridge, 5 km from Sulkava centre, on a shotgun; the first kilometres run with the current through the narrow Hakovirta and Linnanvirta passages below the Linnavuori hill fort, then into the quieter Varmavirta strait. The route goes anticlockwise around Partalansaari, 60 km by the map, and every boat carries a weatherproof route map and a GPS tracker. The first test is Haapaselkä, the open water off the Keriniemi point at the island's south-western corner, where the waves are felt in the hands and rocky shallows have to be rounded with care.

After Haapaselkä the water narrows again into the Kietävälä strait, where the cable ferry gives way to the rowers but the cargo ships on the Saimaa deep channel do not. Half way is Hirviniemi, where an old steamer pier makes a good spectator point, then Jänisselkä and the turn north into Oulunsalmi, where the channel is at times only a few tens of metres wide between small islands. The most famous and hardest stretch follows: Lepistönselkä, a long open crossing that the organiser describes as the test of sisu. The small boats then cut through Leppäsalmi while the church boats stay on the deep channel; the Vekaransalmi bridge marks 10 km to go.

The last turns lead across Kaartilanselkä past Sikoniemi and through Toroppasalmi, with Sulkava church tower in sight, to the finish line on the shore of the Soutustadion. There are two service points on the water: toilets at Käenniemi (about 34 km) and a floating raft at about 50 km with snacks, which you can take alongside without leaving the boat; the touring-row rest stops at Varmavirta, Varviranta and Tölkkäänniemi also have toilets. Safety boats patrol the whole loop, which is split into watch sectors manned by volunteers. The distress signal is an oar held crosswise and moved up and down; if a boat capsizes, stay with it.

How to enter

Entries are made per boat or crew through the Starttiin.fi system used by Finnish rowing and paddling events, with a Suomisport login; you can enter a single, a pair, a four, a 10- or 14-seat church boat, or any unpowered boat in the special-boat class. There is no lottery and the event has never sold out in recent years: online entry runs to 4 July 2027 (5 July in 2026) and late entries are taken at the race office on the day before and on the morning of the race at Hakovirta, at €100 per rower for the 60 km in 2026. Crew lists can be completed later, by mid June, and the system charges for a full crew, so tell the organiser if you row short-handed.

The 2027 price for the 60 km is per rower and rises in four steps: €69 until 31 December 2026, €79 to 28 February, €89 to 31 May and €99 to 4 July 2027. It includes the marked and patrolled route, GPS tracking and results, bag transport from the start and guarded storage, a meal on your rowing day, a wooden finisher's medal and diploma, the service point, saunas, the rowers' lounge at the finish, the shuttle bus to Hakovirta and the evening party. Full-time students get 30 per cent off; under-23s row the small-boat classes of the 60 km and the touring row free. Entries are binding with no refund, but a place can be sold on and the crew change reported to the organiser; the organiser's forum (soutupörssi) is where places and spare rowers are traded.

The Saturday 60 km doubles as the Finnish championship (SM) for wooden boats in every class and age group; to be ranked for medals you need a Suomen Melonta- ja Soutuliitto competition licence and a church-boat steersman with the steersman's course, and SM entries closed on 30 June in 2026. Everyone else rows the same start in the open classes and appears in the overall results. If you have no crew, the Soutupiletti (introduced for 2025) buys one seat in an organiser-crewed 14-seat church boat with an experienced steersman: €129 for the Friday 60 km (target time under 6 hours, with a short practice session before the start), €109 for the 25 km and €149 for the two-day touring row, sold until 31 May or until the boats are full. Church boats can also be hired from the organiser: €550 for a fixed-seat and €650 for a sliding-seat boat for the 60 km in 2026.

How to train for it

Row as a crew before you race as one

Fourteen rowers and a steersman have to find one rhythm for five or six hours. The organiser-crewed boats hold a practice session a few hours before the start; a club crew should have several long outings together, with the stroke pair setting a rate the whole boat can hold on the open stretches of Haapaselkä and Lepistönselkä.

Build up to three hours on a fixed seat

Most church boats are fixed-seat, so the work is in the back, shoulders and arms rather than the legs. Long steady sessions on a rowing machine or in any boat, lengthening towards two or three hours, prepare you for the second half, when the boat gets heavy and the median crew has still an hour or two to go.

Prepare hands and seat

The organiser's own preparation briefing covers blisters and chafing for a reason: 60 km of oar handling and a wooden thwart are what stop people enjoying the last 20 km. Tape or glove up in training, test a seat pad, and use an anti-chafe balm where skin meets wet clothing.

Learn the route and the water level

Crews must study the route map themselves; the organiser runs online briefings in June on the route, the shallows and the service points, and in 2026 warned that low water on Saimaa had changed the usual lines. Practise reading a chart with your steersman and know where the deep channel is, because the cargo ships will not move.

Eat and drink from the first hour

There is one snack raft at 50 km and nothing else, so the boat carries its own food and water for five to seven hours. Crews that have done it talk about rye bread, pickles and sweets passed along the boat; practise eating in the boat on your long rows, and plan a sanitary stop at Käenniemi if you need one.

Train the steersman too

The steersman is legally treated like a motorboat skipper, must be at least 15, and sets the line through the narrow straits and across the open water. The organiser publishes a steersman's basic course and runs a briefing on it; one practised steersman saves more time than a stronger stroke pair.

What you need

• A wooden boat that meets the class rules for competition classes: church boats of wood, maximum 12 m long and 197 cm wide, at most seven pairs of wooden oars and a wooden rudder; small boats of wood, maximum 6.5 m; special-boat and touring classes may use any boat or kayak
• A bailer or pump in every boat (required), and in church boats a red distress flag of 40 by 40 cm on a pole
• The boat number and the organiser's GPS tracker, fitted before the start and returned at the race office for your medal and diploma
• The weatherproof route map handed to each boat; the crew is responsible for knowing the course
• Food and at least a couple of litres of water per rower for five to seven hours; the only service on the water is the snack raft at about 50 km
• Rowing gloves or tape, a seat pad and anti-chafe balm; sun protection and a hat for July on open water
• A change of clothes and swimwear in a bag left at Hakovirta, carried free to the finish lounge; the Lempeä sauna at the finish is mixed and swimwear is compulsory
• Personal accident insurance: every participant is responsible for their own cover (organiser's information pack, 2026)

Getting there and staying

Sulkava is a village in South Savo on Lake Saimaa; it has no railway, so most crews arrive by car with their boat on a trailer, and the organiser points to a car-sharing site and its own forum for lifts. On race day a free non-stop bus runs from Sulkava market square and the school accommodation to the Hakovirta start, 5 km away, from 13:00 on Friday and 07:00 on Saturday, and back until the last spectators have returned; the Hakovirta bridge is closed to traffic during the starts (14:00–16:00 Friday, 08:00–09:30 Saturday in 2026). Church boats are launched at the marked slipways on Alanteentie and trailers parked at the adult education centre; small boats use the Soutustadion slipway at set hours with helpers on hand.

The race office is on the upper terrace of the Soutustadion; the steersman or a rower registers the boat on the day (Saturday crews can do it on Friday, when the office is quietest between 15:00 and 19:00, or at Hakovirta on Saturday morning) and collects the map, wristbands for the meal and the evening programme, the boat number and the GPS unit. Bags left at Hakovirta are carried free to the guarded rowers' lounge at the finish. After the finish there is the Lempeä sauna centre with hot tubs and a swimming jetty beside the lounge, free men's and women's saunas at the sports hall and the municipal offices in the centre, and the rowers' meal at the stadium restaurant (Friday 11:00–23:00, Saturday 12:00–20:00 in 2026). Prize-giving is in stages on the stadium stage, church boats at 17:00 and small boats at 18:00 on Saturday, and the king and queen of the rowing are crowned at 22:15.

Accommodation is thin for a village that hosts thousands: the organiser's page lists manor rooms and a 17-bed barn at Tiittala, large villas for a whole crew, a village hall with 30 beds for one or two church-boat crews, cabins, and a school used as dormitory accommodation on the bus route. Touring rowers camp at Varviranta, a campsite on Partalansaari, with their gear carried there by the organiser. Book months ahead; many crews come back every year to the same beds.

History

The race grew out of the boat builder Kauko Miettinen's boyhood dream of rowing around Partalansaari in one light summer night, an idea the village took up in 1968, when 36 rowers took part. It passed 1,000 in 1980 and peaked at 10,224 rowers in 2003, when it was the largest rowing event in Finland, then fell steadily to 3,400 in 2019 and 1,614 in 2021 after the cancelled 2020 edition. Since 2024 the festival side has been run by an event company based at the Tiittala manor while Sulkava-seura organises the rowing itself, and the organiser's own target is to bring in a new generation that has never rowed a wooden boat.

The patron each year has included four Finnish presidents (Koivisto, Ahtisaari, Halonen and Niinistö). Course records for the 60 km are 3:51:20 for a sliding-seat church boat (2004) and 5:04:50 for a fixed-seat single scull, set in 1991 by the Sulkava legend Ari Kankkunen, whose ten wins in the men's single were passed in 2026 by Heikki Karjaluoto's eleventh. The 70 km touring row with a night at Varviranta has been part of the programme for decades and is the organiser's own favourite for first-timers.

Where to find out more

• Partalansaari 60 km route description (opens in a new tab): The organiser's stretch-by-stretch description of the king's distance, with the route map.
• Prices 2027 (opens in a new tab): Entry fees per distance and date, what is included, and church-boat hire prices.
• Soutupiletti: a seat in an organiser's church boat (opens in a new tab): How to join the 60 km, the 25 km or the two-day touring row without your own crew or boat.
• Competition rules (opens in a new tab): Crew composition, boat specifications for church boats and small boats, drafting and licence rules.
• Results 2026 (opens in a new tab): Friday and Saturday results as spreadsheets, with the GPS tracking service.
• Route records (opens in a new tab): Records for every class on the 60 km since 1991.
• Suomen Melonta- ja Soutuliitto rules (opens in a new tab): The federation's wooden-boat rulebook that governs the Finnish-championship starts.