Round Long Island Race 2018

Written by Ana Marija @Danielis on November 05, 2018 in Sailing News & Events, Sailing Stories

We are proud to present and inform you about a great sailing success from our team members. A team formed by Fabijan Roic, a young, rising sailing star of Croatia together with Danijel Razi, CEO of Danielis Yachting has won the Round Long Island Race, a more or less off-shore regatta which started in 2014.

Even more interesting is that their team consisted of only two of them, while 21 other boats competing had no less than 6 people in their crew, while most of the boats had even more crew members.

The race was established in 2014 when Sailing club Kon-Tiki Sailing Croatia and Yacht Club Zlarinengaged their forces to begin a new story of unique, extraordinary and beautiful regatta just before the sail racing season on this part of Adriatic ends.

The race is 130 Nm long and it leads thru more than 150 islands and rocks, beautiful national park of Kornati and it rounds the highest lighthouse on the top of the island Dugi otok (Long Island). The lighthouse was build in 1849 by Habsburg monarchy and it stands there to prevent sailors from rocks for almost two centuries. with its 42m height, it is the highest lighthouse on the whole Adriatic sea with its beam of light up to 22 Nm.

Dugi Otok Regatta

Image source: Regate.com.hr

The race record of 14h 52 min 20 s is held by local skipper Neven Bjazic, member of local team Yacht club Zlarin.

Results of the 'Round Long Island Race - 2018'

On this year's edition of "Round Long Island Race" we had 22 boats in 6 classes. The race was very interesting, we could say that we broke the record of the regatta members. The wind was from SE so the regatta took place in the clockwise turn of Veli Rat. The boats were very fast downwind but on the way back it took them a long time to sail against strong winds and waves. Lots of the crews had to retire because of the equipment damage onboard.

The winning boat was CRAZY (Akilaria 40) with just two crew members onboard. Fabian Roić as skipper and his teammate Danijel Razi. They didn't break the record but manage to come into the finish in 16:38:00 hours.

Regatta round Long Island

Image source: Regate.com.hr

As the official report from the regatta states, the winds were quite strong, mostly from SE direction, blowing from 15 to 30 knots.

Here’s a short description of the race by Danielis Yachting CEO Danijel Razi:

After a few setbacks during the start procedure, first, about 8 minutes to start, the gennaker sheet went around the propeller, and then 4 minutes to start 'Crazy' ran aground, got stranded in shallow waters in Zlarin port. However, a young star Fabijan Roic managed to find solutions to all of the problems, and we managed to pass the starting line. We were last on the start line, but going downwind we had a good speed and we managed to get to lead after about 25 minutes of the race.

Our boat Akilaria 40 is good and has an advantage going downwind, but going upwind was not in our favor. As the first part of the race is going downwind on the open sea, on the western side of Long Island, this is where we planned to gain an advantage.

Long Island Race 2018

Image source: Regate.com.hr

So, once we reached the open sea, captain Fabijan Roic decided to pull up the gennaker on 28 knots of wind. We did it, and for only a few minutes we had speeds of more than 20 knots.

But, not long after that we noticed that the rope which connects bowsprit and gennaker is getting loose, and in a second it broke along with the gennaker furling and it flew in the air. We barely managed to save the sail and continued along with mainsail and genoa.

As our boat needs speed we decided to go more west in the open sea. About 20 NM to the Veli Rat lighthouse on Long Island, we found out we are not leading the race anymore, but we had one boat 8 NM ahead, and a few more boats in a better position than us. So, we changed the course, reached Veli Rat lighthouse, and after two hours of struggle up-wind, we took the lead.

Long Island Race 2018

About 7 hours later we pass the finish line first, with no other boats in sight!

It was an amazing, but the very exhausting adventure.