Vento Cadela wins 2019 Thousand Islands Race
by SCOR 30 Sep 2019 07:00 PDT
19-29 September 2019
Vento Cadela wins 2019 Thousand Islands Race © Event Media
Austrian Christian Phann and his crew onboard Austrian yacht Vento Cadela is the winner of seventh Thousand Islands Race. First leg was already slowest ever among seven editions of Thousand Islands Race and second leg was according forecast promissing to be even slower as it was at the end.
Second leg started at noon on Thursday 26 September from Porto Montenegro under 2-3 knots of wind just enough to slowly pull the fleet out of bay of Boka Kotorska in hope that wind will strengthen around Dubrovnik. On the entire course boats speeds never exeed 6-7 knots and the whole leg challenged everybody's patience and skill to find the wind in difficult conditions. Austrian Vento Cadela, Slovenian Macropus and Slovakian Lucia X were neck to neck alternating lead, never more then one NM apart and much closer at times during entire race.
The thrill of Thousand Islands Race is variety of courses one can choose among more than thousand islands. Macropus' choice to pass south of islands Molat and Ist deliverd significant lead while Lucia X and Vento Cadela passed on the northern side. However, not for long as Macroups soon dropped into lull and Lucia X and Vento Cadela cought up. From then on they all three close together fought to find every breath of wind until arrival to the finish line in Rijeka.
At the end all three togehter entered Rijeka harbour with light south breeze. Lucia X first crossed finish line after more then 77 hours of racing, only 47 seconds ahead of Macropus while Vento Cadela followed after 4 minutes and 20 seconds that was enough for her to win second leg under corrected time. Since she won first leg also Vento Cadela was the winner of 7th Thousand Islands Race. Macropus, that was already once second and twice third in previous regatta edditions added one more second place to her trophies. Last year winner of the regatta Lucia X got third place.
Fact that wind was very slow on this leg resulted in Montenegreen crew on board Sofia estimate that they will not be able to cross finish line until extended time limit at 04:00 on Monday 30 September and decided to motor to Rijeka.
In spite of demanding conditions of this year's regatta or even because of it crews did not hide contnet and excitment and announced they will come back next year to 8th Thousand Islands Race that will be held form 17-27 September 2020.
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