Elaya wins Thousand Islands Race for the second time in a row

Elaya wins Thousand Islands Race for the second time in a row © Elena Shu

The second leg of 9th Thousand Islands Race from Porto Montenegro to finish line in Rijeka harbour will be long retold among its participants. It was hard to imagine that all the boats would finish within 2 minutes after 278 NM, but that indeed happened.

For almost two-thirds of the course boats were in an even fight, and results under corrected time during the race were showing that this could be one of the most even legs of the Thousand Islands Race ever. The three best boats on the first leg, the Slovenian "Elaya" and "Karpo" and the Croatian "Damaco" constantly alternated the lead under corrected time with none of them achieving a significant advantage. However, upon reaching the island of Pag, real time leader "Damaco" hit calm first and others some 20 NM behind were catching under a southerly wind that was breaking through.

That was history repeating itself for Berislav Vranic and his crew on "Damaco" from the last year. In the last part of the second leg from the island of Rab to the finish in Rijeka the start-stop racing continued in anticipation of Jugo to fill Kvarner bay. This ultimately resulted in the first three boats finishing only 1:45 minutes apart. "Damaco" still won the title of the fastest boat in real time crossing the finish line after 50:02:35 hours.

However, it was clear that according to the corrected time the order was the same as in the first leg allowing Dušan Ušenicnik's Slovenian "Elaya" to win the title of the Thousand Islands Race for the second time in a row. Second place went to his club mate Maks Vrecko with "Kapro", while "Damaco" had to settle for third place overall. After retirement of two multihulls in the first leg, the Austrian "Sayg I" of Andreas Hofmeier raced the second leg as the only multihull in the regatta. Even significantly smaller than the other monohulls, "Sayg I" came seriously close to the leaders in contest for fastest boat of the second leg, finishing just 3:47 minutes behind "Damaco". This is how they ended up on the podium:

Monohulls
1. Elaya SLO Dušan Ušenicnik JK Loka Timing
2. Karpo SLO Maks Vrecko JK Loka Timing
3. Damaco CRO Berislav Vranic JK Galeb, Kostrena

Multihulls
1. Sayg I AUT Andreas Hofmaier OSV

Next year will bring the jubilee 10th edition of the Thousand Islands Race and all this year's participants have already registered for it, and with them a large number of boats are expected in the adventure and challenge that provides the best course for offshore races that nature can design.