SaunaScape

S/S Silla setting the record as the world's fastest marine sauna

Sweden’s first floating hotel, the Salt & Sill recently announced another record: the marine speed record for a sauna at 15.5 knots.

Susanna Hermansson, Managing Director of the Salt & Sill says about the S/S Silla, the official name of the sauna boat:

The target was 15 knots, and we succeeded reaching that speed. It feels great and a bit mad, and of course I’m proud to be the owner of the world’s fastest floating sauna. It now remains to be seen whether anyone is brave enough to challenge our record, and we obviously welcome anyone who wants to take a sauna at 15.5 knots.

The record was recorded in early July during the finals at the Match Cup Sweden in Marstrand. The speed was confirmed via a GPS unit.

The 11.9 x 6.5 meter (39 x 21 foot)  building is made of lightweight fiberglass and secured to a catamaran platform, which is powered by two 160 hp diesel engines from Volvo Penta.  A total of 4.5 million SEK (About US$650,000) has been invested in the sauna boat, which can also be used as a relax area, conference room, exhibition venue, or wedding suite. The sauna can usually be found at its home-berth, adjacent to the hotel on Klädesholmen, near Goethenburg.

Rooms at the Salt & Sill start at SEK 1290 (US$ 185) per night. Bookings can be made by contacting the hotel directly.

[Salt & Sill Hotel] via Passport Magazine

Photo by Paint Monkey on Flickr

In our quest to find new and interesting sauna tidbits to share with you, we spend a lot of time combing the web looking for information.

This weekend, we stumbled upon Sauna Times, a blog run by Glenn, a “Joe American” living in Minnesota. We find the similarities between his site and ours uncanny, right down to the choice of the background images. He seems to be quite a personable fellow. So much so that with this post, Sauna times now has a place in our links page.

What really caught our attention on his site though, was his post “Hotel Sauna: How to Take One.” A laminated copy now resides in our briefcase for our next stay at a hotel with a sauna.

We have noticed that most hotel (and health club) saunas, especially here in the USA, tend to be overly dry from disuse. This becomes part of the problem: If the sauna is dry and hot, it irritates your respiratory system. Most  forbid you from throwing water on the rocks, so the only solution is to turn the temperature down. You end up sitting in a warm room, which really doesn’t do much for you.

Sauna Times has a simple solution for all of this: As soon as you check in, turn on the sauna full blast. Give it 20 minutes or so to heat, then:

Flush the hotel sauna. Generously douse with fresh water:

• the bench area where you’ll be sitting.
• the hotel sauna rocks with water (they should bark back, if not, the sauna is lame, call housekeeping if you’re especially irritated).
• anywhere else you feel the urge.

Why?  underused hotel saunas can build up dust and stagnation, this ‘cleansing’ will get your hotel sauna fresh and ready to rock.

After this, reset the timer again, and give the sauna another 30 minutes to recover from this washing, and you’re ready to begin the sauna process, which Glenn distills succinctly: “It’s like the instructions on a box of laundry detergent: sauna, rinse, chill, repeat.”

[Hotel Sauna: How to Take One] Sauna Times