3/8/2024 - 9/8/2024
Porto Carras Grand Resort
The Nautical Club of Thessaloniki announces the International regatta "North Aegean Cup 2024", for boats with ORC rating certificates.
Races will be held in the Toroneos Gulf. The start of the competition and the skippers’ meeting will be held at Porto Carras in Halkidiki, which is also the headquarters of the event. Participating boats will be moored in the marina of Porto Carras. Races will include inshore races (upwind - downwind, triangle) and races along the coast of the Toroneos Gulf.
The Nautical Club of Thessaloniki brought offshore sailing to the waters of the North Aegean Sea.
In 1978, a time when race sailing and even simple preoccupation with the open sea was still at an early stage, NOTh launched the first international races for offshore vessels in its own seas. That first year the races unfortunately did not take place because of the earthquakes in Thessaloniki, but began dynamically the following year based on Skopelos Island. The elite of Greek sailors, who had participated in numerous international competitions, and well-known names in offshore and ocean sailing, sailed the North Aegean Sea.
"This is the best-organized sailing competition I have ever taken part in", said Dutch sailor Bruynzeel in 1979 in Skopelos thereby encouring the organizing committee. Bruynzeel was the inventor of marine plywood and a former winner of the famous Sydney-Hobart race.
The 1981 and 1982 the races were held in Porto Carras, Halkidiki before returning to Skopelos for a while and when in 1985 the event settled permanently in Porto Carras, where Captain John Karras awarded the first annual trophy.
At the same time, in line with major international events, the races became much more technical. Thus, the program of the racing week, in addition to offshore routes, includes technical inshore races such as Olympic triangles, trapeze and windward-leeward. The Nautical Club of Thessaloniki is probably the first one in Greece, to establish this type of racing program.
In the following years, crews from Greece, England, Israel, Cyprus, Russia, Turkey and Bulgaria participated in races plowing the waters of the North Aegean Sea in true racing spirit. Peter Goulandris, John Alafouzos, Theo Angelopoulos, Nikos Perakis, Charles Kiosseoglou, Stelios Bonas, Nikos Lykiardopoulos, Tasos Bountouris, John Giapalakis, George Ertsos, George Andreadis, Notis Batsis, Dimitris Fessas and so many other worhty Greek and foreign sailors loved the North Aegean Sea and the special atmosphere of these races.
After about a decade, the Nautical Club of Thessaloniki returned in 2013 to revive the Northern Aegean Cup while simultaneously organizing the National Offshore Championship in collaboration with the Offshore Commission ORC. The successful event was honored by the participation of 36 boats from all over Greece.
