After a thrilling 13 hours and 27 minutes of sailing, the RSM catamaran crossed the finish line first at the 58th Kékszalag Raiffeisen Grand Prix, winning the trophy for the fastest boat in the absolute category. This ended the Raiffeisen Audi Fifty-Fifty’s long-standing dominance, as the defending champion and Kékszalag record-holder catamaran took third place with a huge margin. The legendary 13-time Kékszalag winner Farkas Litkey came in second aboard Process Solutions.
The sailing battle on the Hungarian Sea several hundred boats started from Balatonfüred on Thursday morning brought a real tactical battle. Although the competitors were still greeted by fresh wind in the eastern basin of Balaton in the morning hours, it almost completely stopped in the western basin, which resulted in a continuous fight for position and changes in the leading position. The fate of the victory was finally decided on the section returning from Keszthely and then approaching the Tihany Strait. The RSM, led by Róbert Vándor, caught the coastal fresh air at an excellent pace, was the first to exit the Tihany Strait and from then on confidently maintained its leading position until the finish in Füred.
At the end of the extremely technical, becoming the light-wind race, a huge battle for the podium positions unfolded. At Tihany, even KÜRT – Team Kaáli and Team Suzuki were sailing ahead of Fifty-Fifty, but in the last three kilometers, in the increasing wind, Márton Józsa and his team accelerated and continuously overtook their rivals, so even if Fifty-Fifty did not win this time, they missed the podium.
Róbert Vándor – the three-time Blue Ribbon winner of RSM, told the celebrating audience on the shore that this was their most exciting Blue Ribbon so far “Q”: “The field was very strong, there were a lot of fast boats at the start, and it was terribly difficult to keep up with them.”
Although the fate of the trophy for the fastest boat in the absolute category has been decided, the 58th Blue Ribbon Raiffeisen Grand Prix is only just beginning for the majority of the fleet of more than four hundred boats in the darkness of the night, where endurance and perseverance play the main role.
András Holczhauser – Secretary General of the Hungarian Sailing Association, assessed the first day of the race at the finish line as follows “Q”: “We saw an exciting race like never seen before in the fight for the title of absolute winner, but the Blue Ribbon is far from over, as countless boat classes are fighting for category positions and battling the elements, as due to the weak wind, a long night and lots of orphan mosquitoes still await the more than 400 boats out on Lake Balaton.”
Safe navigation is the most important task for the teams during the night. The race standings and the category battles can still be followed continuously on the intelligent GPS tracking interface at track.hunsail.hu, and through the television-quality live broadcast ensures uninterrupted images throughout the night on the kekszalag.hu website and the Telekom Live channel.
Update by Aggie Reiter
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