Astra II is based on Tore Holm's drawing no. 890 from the year 1945. The drawings were found by John Lammerts van Bueren from the Maritime Museum in Stockholm. The length of the boat was one of the shortest, but the waterline was long, and the displacement was large. After the experience gained and the tools developed in the construction of one Eight Metre yacht (Birgit) in St.Petersburg it was a tempting idea to build another. Alexey Rusetsky had observed the construction of Birgit from the very beginning and launched a project of his own three years later. The class regulations allowed the use of the same drawings where, however, the deck and the interior were modified by Alexander Kalinichenko.The work was started in 2004 and it took three years. More time than anticipated was spent in the search for khaya wood of good quality and of the required length of seven to eight metres used in the planking. Moreover, it turned out difficult to maintain the budget due to the increasing cost of labour.The newbuilding was launched in August 2007 and she was named Astra II after Alexey Rusetsky's first boat called Astra, the name of which was inspired by the British 23-Metre boat later converted into a J-boat. Astra II was rigged with a modern metal mast but the use of the latest technology in sails has been avoided.Astra II has raced actively since her second year in water and she has been a regular visitor to the regattas in Finland where the class is blooming and that are reachable by sails from St.Petersburg. Her best results are the second place in the Finnish ranking of nine yachts in 2010 and the thirteenth place among twenty-five yachts in the international Régate Annuelle en Mer of the SNG in 2013 in Helsinki.