ACI Women & Men Match Race, Grade 3, Island of Cres - CROATIA

Roberto Ferrarese and Petra Kliba win the first ACI Women & Men Match Race

The first mixed regatta, an event with future, was successfully brought to an end. Three beautiful days of sailing, with terrific winds around 10knots, 8 teams from Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, completed a full Round Robin, semi-finals and finals The racing was held right in front of the marina, very close for the spectators who were cheering on the local team of Petra Kliba, who was sailing against the Slovenian Jon Brecelj, fighting for the 3rd place in the petit-finals.

In the finals, we saw on Sunday the Italian Roberto Ferrarese, a man with 3 America’s Cup campaigns to his name, 11 Italian titles, 3 world and 4 european titles, against the Croatian Tonko Ramesa sailing with the well trained crew of the highly acclaimed Croatian Match Racer, Tomislav Basic.Just as it was in the battle for the third place, the finals also finished 3-2 for the Italian who after the matches jumped into the water to cool down.

This was the first try with an open mixed event and everybody was very happy. The organisers intend to continue with this schedule, but hope to have more female teams next year. This year we only saw two female teams from Croatia. ACI is a very good and experienced Match Race event organiser, a company that is running a chain of marinas all over the Adriatic. On the first evening after the Opening Ceremony they organised a dinner for the competitors followed by two nice disco evenings on the following days. There was also a prize award for the first male and female team of 1.000 EUR.

The Overall results:

1. Roberto Ferrarese (ITA)
2. Tonko Ramesa (CRO)
3. Petra Kliba (CRO) - women
4. Jon Brecelja (SLO)
5. Domenico Campo (ITA)
6. Bojan Rajar (SLO)
7. Tihana Tadinac (CRO) - women
8. Mladen Babac (CRO)

Official webpage:
www.aci-sailingcenter.com

(Report provided by Petra Kliba (CRO).)