Saturday, May 12, 2018

Hungarian Women's J/24 Team Wins Ladies Cup!

Hungary women's J/24 sailing team winners(Vis, Croatia)- A women’s J/24 Team from Hungary’s Lake Balaton won the Ladies Cup in Vis, Croatia.
The Hungarian all-women J/24 Team “JUST A BIG DINGHY“ opened their 2018 sailing season with a dominating win at the LADIES CUP in Vis, Croatia, racing on the gorgeous Adriatic Sea!

The Sailing Club Vis were the organizers of the unique sailing event, a regatta dedicated exclusively to women crew all sailing on the same 35-foot sailboats.

This year, the seven women’s teams from five countries (Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Montenegro) attending Vis arrived on Thursday- marking the occasion of the International Women's Day.

On Friday, they started sailing a three-race practice format, with three teams sailing against each other, and then rotating after each race. The women learned quickly and it was lucky it was a benign, warm breeze of just 7 to 9 kts all day.

For the formal regatta taking place on Saturday and Sunday, the teams selected their first boat by lottery.  From there, a rotation was established for all teams to participate in a total of six races, three races scheduled per day.

Furthermore, due to the lack of experience of some of the participants, the regatta PRO decided to prohibit the use of spinnakers. One of the reasons was the location of the race course, the rocky lee shore of Kutu can be dangerous and had the possibility of creating unwanted encounters with the coast!

The most successful crew was the PENGA VSE team from Hungary. Their team was comprised of sailors that were extremely skilled and were definitely the most experienced team. There were crew was made up of sailors that raced J/24s extensively on Lake Balaton in Hungary against such skippers as J/24 European and Soling World Champion Farkas Litkey (a very famous sailor in European sailing circles).

The Hungarian women knew how to get their boat moving off the start and their maneuvers were flawless; resulting in six bullets to win the regatta by a significant margin.

Immediately after them, the QUAKA STWE women’s team secured the silver with four 1sts and two 2nds for 8 pts total.  This team has been regular participants in the event and are part of the Split Training League sailing on the same type of boats.  Finally, in third place was the FRAPA WST women’s crew, one of the top teams that has participated in the regatta over time. Add to Flipboard Magazine.