Day two at the Martini EFPT in Perna, Croatia started very easy with the skippers meeting at 1.00pm. The easterly wind during the morning and early afternoon usually shift to it’s usual westerly direction later in the day. However the conditions didn’t seem to improve so a tow-in competition was organised. In case of no wind throughout the whole event, the organiser agreed on putting 2.000€ towards the tow-in to guarantee an official result that will also be counted into the EFPT tow-in overall ranking.
Eight riders signed up to battle it out for the highest scores. Each competitor got three runs with the best one counting. Judging was based on style and technical difficulty and race director Tom Hartmann himself drove the powerful boat that was towing the riders at a speed of up to 60 km/h.
The spectators at the beach carried Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic) through all of his runs with cheering and big applause. Adrien landed his moves pretty much straight at the beach going for perfect air-funnell burner combinations and earned 54 points for a burner burner in his second round. Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya) from New Caledonia who is always a competitor to watch out for in freestyle and also in tow-in stomped a clean skopu and scored 48 points. Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde) showed a lot of different moves going in switch and regular stance. His highest scoring move was an air-funnell burner (45,5 points). Those three riders were point-wise way ahead of all the other entrants who were also showing a decent performance mostly attempting funnell combinations.
Adrien Bosson in the tow-in competition (by Boris Kacan)
Johnny Yagen from Israel who tried out tow-in for the first time yesterday impressed with some nice moves today, yet couldn’t get dangerous for the top riders. Also Riccardo Marca (North/Fanatic) from Italy and Rafa de Windt from Curacao were going for burners and double funnells yet couldn’t exceed the benchmark of 30 points.
The two up and coming freestyle talents Lennart Neugebauer (Starboard) and Tvrdko Ljucic also entered to gain more experience in this discipline. They were getting tipps from the pros on the beach and attempted burners and funnells. Big props at this point to them for being so highly motivated. It’s always nice to see the juniors getting involved and the pro riders helping out so much.
The top three of the tow-in competition at the Martini EFPT Croatia:
1st Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic)
2nd Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya)
3rd Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde)
Antoine Albert going for it (by Boris Kacan)
After his first place in the tow-in here at Perna in 2015, Adrien Bosson takes victory again. The Frenchie stated: ‘I really like the crowd here and the conditions with the light easterly wind deliver the perfect tow-in playground. Now we are all hoping for some freestyle in the next days.’
The forecast for the weekend looks more promising and we hope for some sailable conditions tomorrow and especially on Sunday with north wind of up to 30 knots.
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Rafael the Windt hanging out (by Boris Kacan)