Tricky Conditions on Day Two

The wind continued to play with sailors of 17th ACI HTmobile Cup. It was too weak on day one and yesterday it started with an ideal 20 knots before increasing to 35 knots and threatening to bring an end to racing.

It was during those moments when an accident happened on the boat of the Danish crew of Jesper RADICH. A member of his team got injured but without serious consequences so that the teams were allowed to continue racing. With Tuesday’s three flights and yesterday’s six, there are nine flights of the first round robin sailed all together.

The regatta committee had a lot of work to do. The northerly wind locally called ‘dirty bora’ was mocking the committee and the competitors by changing its direction from N to NE and somewhere in between so that the race course had to be changed several times. Technical staff had a lot to do too since strong winds damaged several sails.

After nine flights, Swede Magnus HOLMBERG is in the lead before Polish skipper JABLONSKI who shares six victories with Australian SPITHILL. The Dane RADICH follows with five wins and one race missing because of his team mate’s injury. Chris LAW (GBR), Jes GRAM – HANSEN (DEN) and Paolo CIAN (ITA) have four wins and four defeats, Mattias RAHM (SWE) was successful three times as well as Allan COUTTS (NZL). Young Johnie BERNTSSON (SWE) managed to win twice and home skipper Frano BRATE (CRO) has not tasted a sweet aroma of victory yet.

The competition will continue this morning at 9.30a.m. (local time) when the tenth flight of the first round robin will start if the wind is favourable.