Visit-Montenegro.com: ‘10 years after’ conquered Corfu

Podgorica – Montenegrin team on a sailing boat “10 Years After”, skippered by Alesandro Djurovic and a crew consisting of Srdjo Stijovic, Aleksandar Filipovic and Srdjo Roganovic, from the club “Mornar Bar”, won the 24th International Holiday Dinghy Sailing Regatta Brindisi – Corfu.
Brindisi Regatta, organized by the Italian Sailing Federation Brindisi and the Corfu Sailing Club, took place from 10th to 12th June. There were 107 crews from Italy, Greece, Russia, Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia.

4th place went to the sailing boat “Modus Vivendi” skippered by Dragan Lekic from the club “Mornar” while yachtsmen Blagoje Knezevic on a sailing ship “Poseidon”, Dusan Vukovic- Dule on “Vladra” and Pero Vujovic on “Ksenija” made a good result.

Great success of Montenegrin yachtsmen was recorded by Italian and Greek media. All sailing boats were categorized into four classes: class A (“Maxi”) consisting of fast sailing boats, class “Holiday Sprint”, class “Holiday” and class “Bavaria”. The head of the Regatta Committee is Raffaele Ricci.

On 10th June at 1 pm, on a sunny and windy day, which gave a special charm to the very start of the race, the regatta set off. Regatta should finish the race for 32 hours the most. The starting point was at the Port Brindisi where 107 boats were trying to find the best starting position by squeezing past each other on a limited area of the maritime zone which was packed with motley sails. The majority of boats were Italian Maxi boats with big masts and large crews.

The Regatta was 104 nautical miles long. The most boats took a sailing route along Italian Coast towards the Strait of Otranto and in the evening they passed through the Strait of Otranto towards Corfu. The rest of the boats sailed towards the open sea towards Albania, with the aim to find the most favorable wind to sail along the Albanian Coast and reach Corfu. There was enough wind to make the race interesting. The wind blew at 15 knots during the day and during the night at 8 knots which slowed down many of the boats while they were going through the Strait of Otranto. The wind blew at 18 knots at dawn when 30 fastest boats reached Corfu. As the sun was rising, the wind grew stronger, which made the last three hours of the race more exciting.

Many Italian teams spread their spinnakers and headed for the finish hoping to win. The first boats crossed the finishing line near the fishing village Kassiopi around 10 am on 11th June.

The organization of this prestigious South Adriatic Regatta is traditionally good, so there were neither significant problems nor remarks of participants as usual.

The following night, the organizers gave reception in the honour of the winner in Marina Gouvia. The participants were greeted by the Mayor of Corfu, the Italian Ambassador to Greece and the head of the Regatta Organizing Committee.

After he congratulated to the Montenegrin team, the head of the Regatta Organizing Committee - L. Djordjevic said that this victory has symbolic meaning since Montenegrin teams took part in this Regatta for 10 years already, and precisely this boat named “10 Years After” was the fastest boat in its class. This is the first time that the Montenegrin sailing team has won a victory despite the skilled and well-equipped Italian teams.

By R.V.