Podium finishers determined in AEGEAN 600

Lavrion, GRE – The recent heat wave in Attica – where temperatures are expected to reach 45° tomorrow – has slowed the strength of the prevailing Meltemi winds on the AEGEAN 600 race course and inhibited the progress of the remaining teams towards their finish at Cape Sounio. Accordingly their time allowances against their faster-rated rivals that have finished has been running out so that the top-three teams in ORC and IRC scoring have been now determined.This offshore classic race is organized by the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club (HORC) and co-organized by the Region of Attica, Olympic Marine and supported by the Deputy Ministry of Sports.

In the ORC-scored classes Patrizio Bertelli’s Frers 105 ULISSE was first to cross the finish line early yesterday morning with an elapsed time of 63H 23M 55S, but it is Pericles Livas & Vaggelis Nikolopoulos’s OPTIMUM S-SAMOS STEAMSHIP that has both won both ORC Class 1 and ORC overall with a corrected time of 96H 37M 58S. This victory is especially sweet for the Greece-based team who last year had just acquired this all-carbon Carkeek 47 racing design and were unable to troubleshoot their instruments system.

The runner-up in ORC 1 and overall is Alexandros Raftopoulos’ Swan 112 ERATOSTHENES from Malta, and winning the Bronze position in ORC 1 and overall is Monolis Kondylis’ Neo 570 CARBONITA from Italy.

The top-scoring teams in the ORC 2-3 class are Dr. Sascha Schroder’s Neo 430 Roma NEOMIND from Germany who finished last night, followed by Vassilis Prifitis’ Hanse 508 PHAEDRA from Greece winning Silver and Linda Goddard’s Swan 53 CB BEDOUIN from Australia winning Bronze.

Chris Sherlock’s Farr 100 LEOPARD 3 was the first-to-finish team who set a new course record of 45H 05M 25S and with this has also claimed the top award in IRC and Maxi class scoring. The runner-up in these classes is Grzegorz Baranowsi’s Volvo 70 I LOVE POLAND, with Bronze going to OPTIMUM S-SAMOS STEAMSHIP. The top IRC 2 class team is NEOMIND, followed by PHAEDRA and then BEDOUIN.

Pietro Farrielo’s Outremer 4x LYNX finished just before midday today as the first-to-finish Multihull and therefore leads this class in MOCRA scoring.

Two other entries in this class are still on the race course, and one dismasted two days ago and is parked safely in Kos.

The final prizegiving ceremony for these and other awards will be on Saturday evening 15 July at the spectacular Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park.

Despite the slow finishes for the fleet, there has been high praise for this race among a wide variety of boats that raced this 605-mile course for the first time.

“I think this was a beautiful regatta, with all weather conditions,” said Patrizio Bertelli. “I think a lot of boats can come do this race because it’s really a true offshore race. The most complicated part was the wind under Karpathos with 40 knots. We had all conditions, with windy very beautiful breeze and then calm, all in all very interesting. Especially here in July in the Aegean I think that this is one of those regattas that will build and be much more successful in the future.”

“We participated for the first time in the AEGEAN 600 and feel it is a wonderful race,” said Guenther and Claudia Birkner from Austria about racing their Swan 65 CLOUDY 7 that finished early this morning.

“We had super scenery, jumping dolphins, no one should miss this race where we had all kinds of conditions, which is interesting and nice. From no wind at all, that stopped us for a night, to very strong winds with gusts of 30 knots and more, and wavy conditions that were quite tricky sometimes. So this makes it a very challenging experience, and we really enjoyed it.”