The weather during the summer holidays in Sweden 1985 was not the best and the second monday in July was no exceptance. Peter and Åke, two middle aged males were going to take Peter's sailing boat from Västervik to Stockholm during their vacation. During the first day they hoped to reach the island of Gotska Sandön and they left Västervik late around 2 pm. The sea is a bit heavy or at least choppy and Peter thought that it would take about 20 hours to reach their destination. The boat wass speeding with the main- and foresail set. Now and then they also used the spinnaker. Both of them wore lifejackets. Åke was for the first time in his life a steersman. Peter was used to sailing of course as the owner of the boat. After they have passed Kungsgrundet about 6 pm, Åke sailed by the compass, Peter made the calculations. Peter maked a couple of sandwiches that they ate. It was a rather cold evening in July, but they took no alcohol. Peter had a principle to not use alcohol when he is sailing.
Peter could feel some slight seasickness and stayed in the deckhouse for a while to rest. He was not sleeping, only resting. After a while Åke could see a couple of lighthouses and he called Peter who decided their position. It was now late, around 11.30 pm and Åke was tired and wanted to be replaced at the helm. Before Peter took over he stepped down in the deckhouse and dressed in his overalls, he was a bit cold. He removed his lifejacket first and before he closed the zip in the overall he decided to have a wee. He kneeled down along the railing in boat deck to start but suddenly the boat heaved over and the rope brooke and he fell into the water. Åke was shocked but succeded to turn around and go back in the opposite direction. He viewed Peter swimming there and succeded in taking Peter's hands but the speed of the boat was too high and they lost their grip.
However, Åke succeded a second time to go back but he was not able to steer close enough to Peter. When coming back for the third time he couldn't view Peter at all. Shocked he circled around shouting Peters name. Gradually he realised that it was useless and steered towards land which had showed up before the mast. It was the island Gotland. In spite of his unfamiliarity of sailing he succeded in sailing into the harbour of Visby and reported to the police. Continued efforts by the coast guard to find Peter were of no success.

Three weeks later were a dead body was found in the water 18 nautical miles southwest of Visby. It could be seen that it is a male dressed in a blue overall without a lifejacket. The police suspected that they had found Peter, but the body was taken for autopsy and identification to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Solna.
We had some problem to get the antemortem dental records of Peter. The usual way is to ask the relatives for the name of the family dentist of the suspected dead. But in this case the relatives didn't know. However the military authorities could help us. Peter had made his military service about 10 years ago and we received a written record and two bitewings. The same bitewings could be taken postmortem on the dead body and a safe identity could be established.

                                                                                Leif Kullman