Swiss sailors Stephan Felt and Ulf Hegel winning the EuroCup in Pula
It can be said that one of the EuroCup regattas has now traditionally been held in Pula. Last year, JK Vega organized the Flying Dutchman class event with this status for the first time.
This year, the regatta took place again during the first weekend of October, from Friday, October 4th, to Sunday, October 6th. A total of 16 teams competed, one of which was a mixed crew, while all the other teams consisted exclusively of male sailors.
The first day of the event passed with unfavorable weather conditions that didn’t allow for sailing out of the club’s harbor, so all hopes were pinned on the next two days.
The following day, the wind started blowing, and sailing began at 11 a.m., with races happening one after another. The conditions were stable enough that no corrections to the racecourse were necessary, and at times, there was more than enough wind for very exciting sailing.
In all three Saturday races, the crew from Switzerland—Stephan Fels & Ulf Hugel—dominated, with Tin & Robin Matulja finishing second twice and Mladen Peharda & Bruno Marević once. These two Croatian crews turned out to be our most successful representatives, showing they were in good physical condition for sailing in stronger winds and challenging conditions.
Sunday was the complete opposite of the previous days. Sunny weather and a light mistral wind showed the sailors from northern Europe what the Mediterranean usually looks like.
The first race started with a northwesterly wind, but during the second beat, it quickly shifted left by more than 30 degrees, forcing the race officer to abandon the race. A new course was quickly set up, and the regatta resumed, with the conditions this time favoring the Polish crew—Jacek Tyszkiewicz & Piotr Tyszkiewicz. They also performed best in the final, fifth race.
The Swiss crew was slightly slower today, as were the aforementioned Croatian teams, but they had accumulated enough low points to remain in the lead, while the Polish team moved up to second place thanks to their race wins, which gave them an advantage over the Matulja brothers, who had the same number of points but no race wins.
Results: here