Marina Pez Vela Hosts The Offshore World Championship

Before you even arrive at the newly constructed Marina Pez Vela, you can feel the energy and excitement floating on the balmy ocean breezes. Once you arrive, you have the opportunity to enjoy a one-of-a-kind experience that could only be The Offshore World Championship. With some 67 international teams that had to win a qualifying tournament during the preceding year in order to even qualify, this is an event that simply cannot be missed.

Among the most fascinating and easily nerve-wracking aspects of the event is the boat draw, an event during which the boats are divided into various classes and each team draws one boat from each class. For teams who are accustomed to fishing on a specific boat with particular gear, this can be a big difference. In fact, it can be quite unsettling, but this is just one of the many aspects that serves to heighten the excitement of The Offshore World Championship.

The event, which concluded earlier this year, wrapped up with a grand total of more than 2,840 billfish releases, including some 2,800 sailfish, 14 blue marlin and even a couple of black and striped marlin.

Throughout the event, competition remained tough. In fact, when the tournament was down to its last ten minutes, there were only a few hundred points separating the top three teams. With just minutes left remaining, two of the top three teams hooked up and ended up tying with 13,400 points each. The team representing the Sea Horse Anglers Club Billfish Tournament of Bermuda released their final fish just three minutes prior to the Torneio de Marlin de Rio Janeiro Brazil team in order to claim the tie breaker and ultimately win the championship. All in all, it was an amazing tournament.

Even if you missed this year’s tournament, plans are already underway for next year’s tournament, so get ready for an event that is expected to be bigger and better than ever.