Bowie Croatian Week 2021

This years VISC October week was on a fleet of 10 Bavaria 41s out of Pirovac, all named after Bowie songs.  It was mostly light wind sailing all week but with plenty sunshine. We won the racing and the Bob Pitt Memorial Trophy.

Day 1

Sailed out to NW of Zŭt, mooring next to expensive Festa restaurant. €70 mooring fees! Practiced MOB, heaving to, etc. Quite useful.

Day 2

Light wind race around some islands. Started with 8-10kn NE, then dropped completely, then came back a little from SW. Finished first. No-one noticed us hitting the finish line buoy.  Motored to harbour in small town on Iž.

Day 3

No wind at all so we motored 18 miles round the north of Zŭt and out through the narrow channel between Kornat and Katina. Some wind came around 14:00 and we raced down to marina on Piškera. We led the whole way but were undercut by 2 boats just before rounding last point. Should have been much more aggressive and cut them off immediately. Lesson learned!

Day 4

Gusty wind 4-6bft. Raced around some islands in the Kornatski Kanal. Great race on sunny day. Came first but not pointing high enough and not sailing fast enough downwind. Back to Piškera for the night.

Day 5

Had to wait until after 2pm for some wind. Raced around islands from Ravni Žakan just south of Kornat. Again we did well upwind but everyone was catching up downwind. Managed to stop Frank Honan and Peter McNeil from passing between us and island and scraped to second place. Winning boat (Andrew Parker) was well out in front most of the way.

Restaurant on Ravni Žakan is same place we had the ceilidh a few years ago.  This time again we won the even with 2 first places, 1 second and 1 third. Very happy. Learned so much from the Garda Seascape week with Andy and Alasdair.

Day 6

No wind at all after 11am. Drifted around until needing to motor back to Pirovac.

All in all another great week's sailing. Some studying to do on sail trimming though for next year.

More pictures here.