Mrdujska regata: 200 sails race from Split round a tiny islet

At 11:00 on the first Saturday of October, about 200 sailing yachts cross one start line south of Sustipan in Split. Their turning mark is Mrduja, a rock of 0.013 square kilometres in the Split Gate between Brač and Šolta. The Mrdujska regata has run since October 1927, and the Split sailing club JK Labud organises it. The 95th edition started on 3 October 2026 with 202 boats on the start list.

JK Labud calls it the oldest and largest regatta on the Adriatic. In 2006, the 75th edition drew 312 boats. In 2023, 198 boats and more than 1,500 sailors took part. The 2026 start list ran from a 5.50 metre vintage boat to an 18.2 metre maxi. Since 2023 the race has been the centrepiece of the Split Sailing Festival, a series of five regattas in September and October.

Mrdujska regata 2027

As of 20 October 2026, JK Labud has published no date for the 2027 race, the 96th edition. The club's regatta page still shows the 2026 notice of race. The last three editions all took place on the first Saturday of October:

• 2024: the 93rd edition on Saturday 5 October, 163 boats in the official results, won by Stavaganzza with Niko Kmetović of JK Orsan.
• 2025: the 94th edition on Saturday 4 October, 187 boats, won by Fatamorgana 2 with Mate Arapov of JK Mornar in 3 hours, 48 minutes and 5 seconds.
• 2026: the 95th edition on Saturday 3 October, 202 boats, won by Polet Furioso with Nikola Dešković of JK Labud.

The pattern is steady, and the 2027 date still needs official confirmation. In 2026 the club published the notice of race on 16 July. Online entries closed on the Tuesday before the race, the registration desk opened from Wednesday to Friday, and Sunday was a reserve day for bad weather. The new date appears first on jklabud.hr, under Mrdujska regata.

Seven boats sailed the first race in October 1927

Split secondary school students founded JK Labud, and the club officially began work on 11 November 1924. Its members had already sailed their first regatta in August 1924, from the town harbour to Meje. In October 1927, on the initiative of Count Tone Pavlović, seven Labud boats set course for Mrduja for the first time. The club names the America's Cup, first sailed round the Isle of Wight, as the model.

The race paused from 1941 to 1945, during the Second World War, and that gap explains the numbering. In 2026 the club turned 102, and without the wartime break the 95th race would have been the 100th. The trophy for the fastest Labud boat carries the name of engineer Žarko Dešković. He led the club for 15 years and pushed for its small harbour, which keeps its original outline today. The current club president carries the same name.

Mrduja, the islet Brač and Šolta pull on

Mrduja lies in the Split Gate, the strait between Brač and Šolta, about 400 metres off Cape Zaglav near Milna. It covers 0.013 square kilometres and rises 11 metres above the sea. It holds a lighthouse, the ruins of an old fortification, pines, agaves and prickly pears, and it sits closer to Brač than to Šolta.

Legend says the people of Brač and Šolta both claimed the rock and tried to haul it to their side with ropes. In the version told in Milna, islanders bought wisdom in Venice and carried it home in a gourd. A mouse escaped from the gourd onto Mrduja, and they tried to pull the islet across to get it back. Since 2008 the two islands have replayed the story each July in Potezanje Mrduje. Boats from Milna and Stomorska tie on and pull, the islet stays put, and points from games decide. Brač won the 17th edition in July 2026.

The course runs from Sustipan to Mrduja and back

The start line runs between orange buoys south of the Sustipan peninsula. In 2020 it stretched for more than a mile, from the harbour entrance to beyond Sustipan. The fleet sails about 11 nautical miles to Mrduja, leaves the islet to port and returns to Split. The 2026 sailing instructions put the route at 19.6 nautical miles, while the club usually quotes 22. Before the finish, boats round an orange buoy about 500 metres south of Sustipan. The finish line runs from a pole behind the JK Labud clubhouse in Uvala Baluni to a buoy 100 metres to the south.

• All groups start together at 11:00. The race committee runs the start on VHF channel 77, and the sequence begins five minutes before the gun.
• A second finish line lies just south of Mrduja, between a pole with a blue flag on the islet and a red buoy about 100 metres off.
• Boats must pass Mrduja by 17:30 and finish in Split by 18:30.
• Boats that reach Mrduja in time but miss the Split limit are ranked behind all full-course finishers, by their time at Mrduja.
• The order is by sailed time to the finish in Split, overall and within each group.
• Prizes go to the three fastest boats overall, the leaders of each group, the fastest Labud boat and the fastest boat to Mrduja. The winner's challenge cup stays in the JK Labud trophy cabinet.

Sixteen groups race, from maxis to wooden oldtimers

Only monohull keelboats longer than 5.50 metres may enter. JK Labud sorts them into 16 groups by length overall. Maxi covers boats over 16 metres, and groups 0 to 9 step down to 5.50 metres. Groups 10 and 11 are wooden oldtimers, and groups 12 to 14 are fibreglass vintage boats more than 30 years old. A group needs at least 10 boats to be scored, five for the oldtimers and three for the maxis. In 2026 group 4, for boats from 9.41 to 10.25 metres, was the largest with 32 entries.

Sustipan and Marjan give the best view of the start

• Sustipan: the headland above the harbour entrance sits right above the start line, about 10 minutes on foot from the Riva. JK Labud invites spectators to watch from here every year.
• Marjan: from the forest park above the city you see the whole fleet at once. The cover photo was taken from the Marjan watchtower at 10:45 on race day 2024, with the boats gathering for the start. Vidilica, the first viewpoint, is about 15 minutes up the Varoš steps from the Riva.
• The harbour front: in 2020 the start line began at the harbour entrance, so the eastern end of the fleet passes close to the city.
• Uvala Baluni: the finish lies behind the JK Labud clubhouse. In 2026 the first boat crossed at 16:05, and finishes continued until the 18:30 limit.
• The prize-giving starts at 20:30 on the club's plateau in Uvala Baluni. In 2026 the band Mjesni odbor played.
• Brač: Mrduja lies 400 metres off Cape Zaglav near Milna. The official results log the first rounding at 14:45 in 2026 and at 12:53 in 2025.

The start sits a short walk from Split's old town

Start and finish lie in the centre of Split. Sustipan and Uvala Baluni are west of the Riva, within walking distance of Diocletian's Palace. Transfers from the airport are covered in Split airport to the city, and the sights between the start and the finish in what to see in Split.

To watch from the islands, Jadrolinija's car ferry from Split to Rogač on Šolta takes 60 minutes, and the company asks passengers to be at the pier 45 minutes before departure. Ferries to Brač land in Supetar, and fewer buses continue from there to Milna. Times and fares are in the Brač guide.

Race day runs from the 11:00 gun to the 20:30 party

• Be on Sustipan or Marjan by 10:45. The boats gather well before the gun, and the start sequence takes five minutes.
• Bring binoculars. Mrduja lies about 11 nautical miles from the start line, in the gap between Brač and Šolta.
• Sunday is the reserve day if weather stops the race on Saturday.
• The start list appears on jklabud.hr on the Friday, and the results follow on the club's Sailwave pages.
• The week before brings Mala Mrduja, the Mrduja Optimist Cup, with more than 100 young sailors in Split.

Sailing in it: entries close on the Tuesday

• Every boat needs an HJS vignette from the Croatian Sailing Federation and valid insurance. Crew members must be registered with their national federations.
• In 2026 online entries closed on Tuesday 29 September at midnight. The registration desk then opened from Wednesday 30 September to Friday 2 October.
• Entry fees in 2026 ran from 15 euros for the small groups to 260 euros for maxis, paid by bank transfer to JK Labud. Club boats of JK Labud enter free.
• Anchors come off the bow and outboard motors off the stern before the race. Sailors under 16 wear a lifejacket the whole time.

Mrdujska regata 2026 in review

The 95th Mrdujska regata started at 11:00 on Saturday 3 October 2026, with 202 boats on the start list. A light burin carried the fleet towards Mrduja. Fatamorgana 2, the 2025 winner with Mate Arapov at the helm, rounded the islet first. Mareus 3 of Denis Stanojević from JK Špinut followed 47 seconds later. Polet Furioso of JK Labud was third at the mark, Slobodna Dalmacija reported.

The wind then turned into a maestral of 6 to 7 knots. Polet Furioso, a 15.85 metre boat skippered by its owner Nikola Dešković, sailed past both. It crossed the line under Sustipan at 16:05:41, after 5 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds. Fatamorgana 2 finished second at 16:11:27, Mareus 3 third at 16:12:36. Dešković sailed with 13 crew, among them his 27-year-old daughter Nora, his brother Žarko and guests from Israel and Germany.

The cup returned to the organising club for the first time in six years. Eighty boats finished in Split before the 18:30 limit, and 25 more were ranked on their time at Mrduja. Branko Širola, who holds the record of five straight overall wins, won vintage group 12 with Nemir V. Ivica Kostelić steered Go Racing to third in group 3. At the prize-giving the band Mjesni odbor played a new hymn it had written for Mrduja.

The race was the centrepiece of the 2026 Split Sailing Festival, which ran from 19 September to 18 October. The series also included Labud Classic for boats over 30 years old on 19 and 20 September, the Mrduja Optimist Cup from 25 to 27 September, the Startup Europe Regatta on 9 and 10 October and the 82nd Vis regatta from 16 to 18 October.