fter two days of strong winds it was third day lucky at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup and Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship. With more strong conditions expected, the race committee brought forward the start time by two hours to 1000. The maxi fleet was greeted initially with 5-8 knot winds [lighter than forecast] that slowly built to 15 knots in the early afternoon, turning strong and blustery later - by which time the maxis were safely back in Porto Cervo. In short, it was a day of near perfect conditions at the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s event, organised in conjunction with the International Maxi Association.

Scheduled today for the 82 to 100 footers competing in the Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship were two windward-leewards while the former Maxi 72s competing in Maxi 2 were due to sail three. Aside from building, here the wind was shifting dramatically between 235 and 310°.

In Maxi 1, Karel Komarek's 100ft V got off to the strongest start winning the first race under IRC corrected time, only to follow this with a ninth (in the 10 boat fleet of 82-100 footers). It was grins all round for Alessandro Del Bono’s team on their brand new 82 footer when Capricorno won race two – only her second ever race since launching earlier this year.

“The boat is great,” commented Alberto Bolzan, Capricorno’s tactician. “Today we had our first opportunity to line up with the other boats and race properly. We did a good upwind in the first race and were in the top of the fleet, but then we made a small mistake manoeuvring and got stuck.” They righted this in the second race, starting by the committee boat and tacking on the first puff out to the left. Despite her diminutive length, Capricorno was only beaten coming into the finish by Seng Huang Lee's SHK Scallywag, 100ft long and the highest rated yacht competing.

However overall leader of the Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship is Wendy Schmidt’s 85ft Deep Blue - third in both races, just a point ahead of the 82ft Django HF with Joost Schuijff’s Leopard 3 third - the first 100 footer.

“It comes as a welcome surprise!” admitted Deep Blue tactician Rob MacMillan. “We felt pretty good coming into this regatta – we’ve made a few small modifications and did some training in the Caribbean with our core team, which has been together since the boat was launched - so the crew mechanics are really good. We have been working on upwind boat speed relative to the bigger boats. We have gone down in sail sizing and optimised our rating. Our focus today was to find clear lanes and minimise manoeuvres. The level of racing in this fleet keeps going up and up– it is super fun to be part of…”

Among the four boats in Maxi 2, competition remains as tight or even tighter than when these boats first raced as the Maxi 72 class, following its first introduction by the IMA in 2015. A 2-1 in the first two races left George and Christina Sakellaris’ Proteus leading, but they followed this with a fourth, which propelled Peter Harrison’s Jolt, second the last race, into the lead. However just one point separates first from third after three races.

Jolt tactician Hamish Pepper said that all four teams had been caught out initially with the wrong sails thanks to the lighter-than-forecast conditions. “Our first race was great - in the second we wanted to go left. Proteus had a good start on us and got ahead and forced us out the wrong way. Then in the last race we got a good start and just a couple of things didn’t fall our way.”

The remaining classes sailed a coastal course that took them on a 30 mile clockwise lap of La Maddalena.

In past Maxi Yacht Rolex Cups, when the Js have competed in the Super Maxi class they have won every race. Not so today with Juan Ball’s Swan 115 Moat prevailing. “We managed the start quite well then we were fighting with y3k,” explained Diego Stefani, Moat’s captain. “It was light in the channel [Bomb Alley]- 8-9 knots and then outside it was 15 - we were expecting it to build earlier.”

This left the Js to take second and third, a dramatic bout between the ancient heavyweights that saw them come into the last mark off Porto Cervo almost overlapped, Svea beating her rival by just 17 seconds under ORCsy corrected time.

In Maxi 3, Aldo and Elena Parisotto kept alive the tradition of Mylius Yachts’ President Luciano Gandini (a past winner here with his Twin Soul B) when their Mylius 65 FD Oscar 3 came out on top ahead of Sven Wackerhagen's Wally 80 Rose by almost two minutes. “We had the perfect conditions today for Oscar 3 and I drove quite well, especially upwind in the canal of La Maddalena [Bomb Alley],” said Parisotto. “Then downwind we didn’t do too much tacking – we sailed directly…” Massimiliano Florio's Southern Wind 82 Grande Orazio currently lies third.

Maxi 4 saw International Maxi Association President Benoît de Froidmont’s 60ft Wallyño sail an exceptional first beat to the extent that, despite her small size, she was first on the water into Bomb Alley. Franz Wilhem Baruffaldi Preis's Mylius 60FD Manticore overtook her on the water south of Caprera. Reaching around the seaward/back side of La Maddalena Wallyño caught up, but so too did Vincenzo Addessi's Mylius 18e35 Fra Diavolo and Luigi Sala’s Vismara 62 Yoru. Ultimately under IRC corrected time Fra Diavolo came out on top with Wallyno second.

“We got a very good start and the conditions were perfect for the boat – light with a flat sea,” said de Froidmont. “Around La Maddalena the wind got up to 15 knots, which isn’t the ideal conditions for the boat. We lost it to Fra Diavolo on the last leg when they were faster - they were sailing very well.”

In the Multihull class, Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18 relished the light to medium flat water conditions and romped around the course to finish a massive 18 minutes 38 seconds ahead of Adrian Keller’s 82ft Allegra. However under ORCmh corrected time, the top prize went to Riccardo Pavoncelli’s Gunboat 66 Gaetana, competing at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup for the first time.

Tomorrow, in order to ensure the maximum possibility of sailing, the race committee has taken the option of displaying a warning signal before 1100.