Under great sailing conditions, in northern Bura winds of 15 to 25 knots, the 22nd Easter Regatta is under way, and already after the first day the favorites are known: Polet Furioso with Nikola Dešković in the Open Race group and X-Cite with Tonko Rameša in the ORC group
Events on the sea during the first regatta day were exciting and hinted at what awaits us in the coming two days. At the skipper’s meeting we had learned the so-called Open Naut group with sailboats adapted for cruising is 13 strong, the Open Race with 3 and the ORC group with 11 sailboats divided in two groups.
In the most numerous Open Naut group, after the first day there are three sailboats looking likely to win: Byblis with Nikola Dešković, Xsirena with Sebastian Levstik and Teuta with Mario Kundiha at helm. Teuta unfortunately did not partake in the first sailing, but won in the second; Xsirena scored two second places, and Byblis a first and a third. It seems unlikely anyone else will catch up to this trio.
In the Open Race group, things are quite clear: the Polet Furioso with Nikola Dešković has no competition this year. At the first regatta they were even several minutes late to start, which did not hinder them to win over Mario Hrvoj on the Toto Travel which had an excellent sailing.
In the ORC group things are more exciting. In group 1 where the larger boats are everything was interesting but the fight for first place, which seems to be reserved for Tonko Rameša and his crew of the X-Cite, overwhelming not only by performance, but also crew effort. Let us recall that Rameša and his crew were best overall in last year’s Easter Regatta.
“When we are off to a regatta, I never think we will “sweep the competition.” Who knows what may happen, we’ll see in the end. Today I thought the strong wind will keep the X sailboats closer, but on the first regatta they took the wrong side, we went through the middle, and they had a poor start in the second regatta, so we were way ahead,” said Tonko Rameša.
Fighting for second place overall are sailboats Karpo, Sky and Xaviera. The group of large sailboats were almost completely caught by Blue Chip with Marko Marinović. However, in corrected time the smaller sailboats came out ahead due to a handicap, so they ended up in the upper section of scores.
This was even more pronounced in the second regatta, and besides adapted time, everyone was overtaken by the small Green Pepper with Neven Gašpić, who had a good start and used the favored left side of the regatta field to speed forward.
Poliklinika Drinković made up for the poor sailing in the first regatta during the second. After the first day the clear candidates for the finals are Tonko Rameša and Neven Gašpić. However, it remains to be seen if the competition can disrupt those plans.
