[URBAN NOTE] "Norway’s sailor king: Why Harald V has been sleeping on a yacht moored on Toronto’s wa

[rfmcdonald]

Joe O'Connor of the National Post reveals that the Norwegian king is spending his time in Toronto, on the Lake Ontario shorefront.

His Majesty King Harald V of Norway was sitting at the back of his sailboat, munching on a green apple, reflecting upon the day of sailing that had just been. A day that was not “good,” according to the king. It was not good because the king, a sailor since age two, a three-time Olympian and the skipper of the Sira, a classic eight-metre sloop that his father, King Olav V, had built in 1938, thrives on competition.

Even today, the 79-year-old King Harald wants to win. But on a breezy Wednesday afternoon on Lake Ontario the King and his crew of Norwegians, whom he has been racing with since 1987, did not win. They came ninth out of 12 boats. The dismal showing dropped them to second place overall in the race for the Sira Cup — a coveted international prize that the king’s father donated to the international sailing community in 1983 — that concludes here Saturday.

“I’ve raced all my life,” says the king, who last won the Cup in 2008. “You can’t stop playing, you know? The first time I was on this boat I was two years old. For me, with sailing, it’s about the competition. The wind — the weather — it doesn’t make any difference who you are, before the wind.”

Norway’s sailor king doesn’t look or act like one might imagine a monarch would. On his green-hulled boat with the wooden deck, with his crew sitting in a nearby boat enjoying a post-race beer at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club on the Toronto Islands, the king cut the figure of a kindly grandfather (he has six grandchildren).

He was dressed casually: sneakers, white socks, shorts and a matching T-shirt. He crunched happily on his apple, consuming every morsel, including the core, before politely removing his sunglasses to reveal light blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled.