[not verified in body] In 1790, King Gustav III revived his plan for a landing close to St. Petersburg, this time near Viborg.

Northern white nights were nearly as light as the day and, to King Gustav's consternation, unfavourable southwesterly winds prevented the combined Swedish fleets of some 400 vessels from sailing southeast to Swedish-controlled Finnish waters.

The coastal galley flotilla (Skärgårdsflottan) of 14,000 sailors and army soldiers was led by flag-captain Colonel George de Frese, under personal charge of Gustav III.

The first set, led by Major General Pyotr Lezhnev, consisted of four ships of the line in the narrow eastern channel.

In the dangerously shallow western channel between Krysserort and Repiegrund sat a set of five chain-linked ships of the line; a group of five frigates (three led by Rear Admiral Pyotr Khanykov and two led by British-born Russian admiral Robert Crown) further south between Lilla Fiskarna island, the Pensar Islets (Pensarholmarna) and the shoreline, and another group of five ships (including two frigates) further west at Pitkäpaasi.

Meanwhile, on 18 June, an assault on the Russian galley fleet at Trångsund (Vysotsk, Uuras in Finnish), ordered by Gustav III and started two days earlier, failed due to lack of support of its center force and returned.

Just prior to 07:00 that morning, Gustav III spoke with then captain Johan Puke of the 64-gun ship of the line, the Dristigheten ("The Audacity"), which would lead the breakout.

Puke ordered all non-essential personnel below decks and, moments later, the Swedish navy engaged the Russian blockade, splitting between the Selsav and the Saint Peter.

By the time the main body of the Swedish fleets arrived to the blockade, the Russian ships posed no longer any danger to the Swedes.

He then, under alcoholic intoxication, committed a series of errors which caused the fireship to drift towards the Enigheten, setting it on fire, and then to collide with the Swedish 40-gun frigate Zemire, with all three ships exploding in an enormous channel-covering cascade of debris and smoke.

[6] The Swedish navy lost a total of eight ships (seven running aground in the heavy smoke from the explosion): four grounded ships of the line - the 64-gun Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta (though her captain, Henrik Johan Nauckhoff, continued firing at the Russian frigates until the end), the Finland at the Salvors shallows, the 74-gun Lovisa Ulrika at the Passaloda shallows just south of Reipie, and the 64-gun Ömheten (the Tenderness) at the Pensar islets - and one shipwrecked ship of the line (the Auroras), although the king's British naval adviser Sidney Smith was saved; three frigates including the Uppland and the Jarrislawitz (Yaroslavets, captured in 1788 from Russia), both at the Passaloda shallows.

However, the Russian frigate squadron commanded by Crown was deployed expressly to blockade the shallower route which forced the light Swedish gun sloops, gun yawls and galleys to head to more open waters where the waves and winds rendered the Swedish archipelago fleet almost totally incapable of fighting.

[6][17] The Swedish warships that survived the breakout headed into open seas, assembled at Vidskär skerry just south of Pitkäpaasi, and then sailed to Sveaborg fortress near Helsinki, now Finland, for repairs.