Last few days we spent in Pula, Croatia, where we sailed at Croatian ORC National Championship. Competition was strong, but so were we, as there were some of the best Croatian Sailors on board, including Karlo Kuret, Americas Cup and 4 time Olympic Games sailor.
As we are all busy, we didn’t have time to practice together, unfortunately, not even once before the Championship.
Despite forecasted 40 knots of wind and big wave all we got was big wave and no wind, so after couple of hours of waiting at sea, Race Committee decided that we return ashore. On Saturday the conditions were perfect, with 13-19knots of SouthEasterly. After the first race we were really disappointed, as we only came 8th. After short talk we continued really strong and finished next race on 3rd place. That felt better and we knew we can improve. On the last race of the day, we pushed even harder and finished 2nd after Team Nube, which by that timed score already 2 bullets (1st places). Team Nube is a strong team, with some Olympians on board and a few weeks of training, just before the championship, under their sails.
No matter what, we were happy with our 2nd place overall, before the final day. We enjoyed a good diner with the other crews at the Yacht Club and continued to a popular local bar, but not for long-we were still in for the title.
Sunday served similar conditions as the day before, just this time no waves.
We didn’t really start well, but this is sailing, it’s not over till is over…and with some good tactical decisions we were soon back in the game. Wind was quite unstable, changing direction a lot so Race Committee decided to stop the race.
We were waiting for a while to get a new start. This time we pulled a perfect start and the best sailing so far, it was enough for 2nd place, but we beat all of our main competition and the difference between us and the leading team was only 1 point now. As we were getting stronger and stronger we really felt confident, which I can’t really say for Team Nube, the leaders.
Unfortunately the wind was not doing us a favor, being so unstable that the organizers decided to finish the race. We were really disappointed with the decision, but (once again) that is sailing…at the end of the day 2nd place at National Championship is not bad at all.
Uroš