Female sailors will gather on International Women’s Day.
PMS Women is the Croatian abbreviation for the Historic Mediterranean Gathering of Women. This ambiguous term is actually the name of a quite unusual regatta which is traditionally organised on the International Women’s Day by the Host Sailing Club from Vis.
On Thursday evening, on the International Women’s Day, a major demographic change will occur on the island of Vis. The afternoon ferry from Split will bring to the island the participants of the fourth edition of the PMS Women regatta. According to Suzi Kraljević, the regatta secretary, this year the match race regatta in Vis will feature seven crews from five countries, with sailing taking place from Friday to Sunday.
PMS Women is in many ways a unique regatta: it is the only one in Croatia where only women are allowed to participate; it is organised in early March, at the time of the year when few people would even think of going out to the sea; it is one of few regattas taking place on the island, without outside help and thanks just to organisational efforts and infrastructure of the local sailing club.
In accordance with the international character of the Women’s Day, the PMS Women has become a genuinely international regatta. This year, it will feature three Croatian crews and one each from Austria, Hungary, Montenegro and Slovakia. The sea in front of the Vis town will see the following squads: Frapa Women’s Sailing Team (Tihana Tadinac, CRO), BWWC Austria (Andreja Janković Sarkezi, AUT), Penge VSE (Annamaria Sabjan, HUN), Montenegro Sailing Team (Olga Salnikova, MNE) MOB II (Diana Urickova, SVK), Quaka Sailing Team (Ana Zelić, CRO) and Suzan Pavić – SU (Željna Labinjan, CRO). All these sailors have a lot of experience in match race sailing and the Olympic classes.
The Host Sailing Club, headed by Goran Pećarević – Peco, will cover all the expenses of the regatta: the boats have been prepared, while accommodation, food and drinks are free, so the girls just have to come to Vis and sail, and everything else is the concern of the organisers. The main base of the regatta in the sports, culinary and entertainment sense is the famous restaurant Villa Kaliopa in Vis.
“This year, the regatta will feature fewer crews than last year, but that is not bad news since fewer competitors mean more sailing. All crews except the Quaka Team participated in the regatta last year, so they know the sea well,” said Suzi Kraljević.
The sailing is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm. Last year, the regatta ended with a victory of the Frapa Women’s Sailing Team, headed by experienced Match Race sailor Tihana Tadinac at the helm.
Photo credit: Joško Maravić
