On the penultimate day of the Martini EFPT in Perna, Croatia the hopes of all the crew and riders were high for some sailable conditions in the early afternoon. Already in the morning though the beautiful area of Peljesac was hard to recognize. After several days with light wind and sunshine the weather shifted to the other extreme with heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Extreme weather conditions at Peljesac

During the whole day the wind has been shifting from east to north and some storms were pushing through, delivering quite extreme conditions. Since the Bura, which is a strong offshore northerly wind, is very gusty here at the Surf Centar Perna the EFPT crew has been checking out alternative spots on the other side of the peninsula to be able to switch competition site in case of too inconsistent wind.

Waiting game at the beach today

Around 4.00 pm the wind fully kicked in with up to 36+ knots, yet was up and down and accompanied by a lot of lightening, so the sailors were kept on stand-by. Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde) who is always good to have in the fleet as he is always trying to push for a contest to start, went on the water together with Johnny Yagen and Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya). The riders seemed heavily overpowered in the gusts and were struggling to even waterstart in some other places. A fair competition however seemed to be impossible as the wind strength rose and fell within minutes and so the competitors were released at 7.00pm.

Steven Van Broeckhoven being closely watched by Lennart Neugebauer

We keep our hopes up for the last day at the Martini EFPT Croatia. We’ll have an early start tomorrow with skippers meeting at 8.00am. The weather forecast says no rain and Bura with up to 30 knots. Fingers crossed that we can start the single elimination in the morning.