Ruffe is the chairman of the Finnish Ocean Sailors Association and is a member of the Finnish Arctic Club.
Ruffe got his nickname from his time at school which later became the name of his boat.
At the age of 20, Ruffe acquired a small 9-meter sailboat, and immediately set out from his domestic territorial waters to sail the Baltic Sea and then to the capricious waters of the North Atlantic to the Faroe Islands.
Already an experienced sailor at the age of 23, he skippered his boat from Finland to America in 1992. The following year Ruffe crossed the Atlantic again, becoming Finland's youngest skipper to cross the Atlantic twice, and in such a small 9 metre sailboat.
The next great adventure in the same 24-year-old boat was to sail to the Arctic Ocean towards the Arctic Glacier. In 2013 Ruffe was the first Finnish to sail an inflatable dinghy around the Arctic Svalbard. On this particular journey their inflatable boat was attacked by a polar bear on the northern shore of the Svalbard. In the past, sailing around this area has been almost impossible due to the solid ice cover. The project was motivated by concerns about the consequences of climate change in the Arctic.
Ruffe is also known for his love of nature and his concern for the environment, especially the Baltic Sea area. In 2015, he sailed across the Gulf of Finland on a reed raft similar to the raft used in Kon-Tiki expedition that was sailed by the famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl to raise awareness of the risks that increasing shipping traffic brings to the Baltic Sea.
In June 2017, Ruffe participated in the Suomi100 project by volunteering to take 100 people of all ages onto the water to inspire boating and environmental awareness.
In 2018, Ruffe went to sea again and sailed the Baltic Sea without touching dry land for a month accumulating 2,700 non-stop nautical miles, the equivalent of crossing the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. The sailing route covered the entire Baltic Sea with its bays, with Kiel, Kemi and Kotka lighthouses acting as turning points. During the trip, microplastic samples were collected for the Finnish Environment Institute from different parts of the Baltic Sea. The popular video series produced from the Transatlantic in the Baltic Sea project can be viewed on Ruffe’s YouTube channel.
In 2019, Ruffe carried out Finland's largest community sailing, in which he took 120 volunteers to sail along the entire coast of Finland from Virolahti to Tornio. Samples of floating marine litter and microplastic were taken for analysis by SYKE (Finnish Environment Institute).
Ruffe has shown that anything is possible when you believe in your cause and your dreams. He wants to inspire others to go sailing and get closer to nature by filming and documenting his expeditions.
Ruffe has chosen Hempel’s Silic One Fouling Release System products to protect his boats from fouling whilst also taking care of the environment. We are so proud that such a famous sailor, adventurer and environmentalist has chosen to switch to Hempel’s Silic One.
On the Hempel Yacht Youtube Channel you can see Ruffe’s aluminium motor boat, Arronet, moving smoothly through the water after the Silic One product application. Another advantage of Hempel’s Silic One is that it self-cleaning on motor boats as well!
Ruffe’s sailing boat, Ruffe, has also been freshly painted with the Hempel’s Silic One Fouling Release System.
We hope you will get inspired by Ruffe’s story and we recommend following his adventures.
Follow Ruffe on his channels
