Record under threat in the Palermo-Montecarlo

The 19th Palermo-Montecarlo yacht race sets sail from Sicily’s capital tomorrow (Tuesday 20 August), concluding the International Maxi Association’s 2023-24 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge, which started with last autumn’s Rolex Middle Sea Race. While the race is typically a light wind affair, this year it may not be so…

Organised by the Circolo della Vela Sicilia (CVS) in partnership with the Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) and Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS), the course as usual will take the yachts through a gate off Porto Cervo, overseen by the YCCS. Competitors then have the option of racing through the Strait of Bonifacio and up the west coast of Corsica or taking the longer route leaving Corsica to port. The distance of the former is around 437 miles.

Among the 51 yacht entered this year are five maxis, competing in the race’s broader IRC fleet.

Favourite for line honours and the Giuseppe Tasca d'Almerita Trophy, is a boat very familiar with the course. The slender 100ft Black Jack won line honours under owner Peter Harburg last year as she did four times before as Igor Simčič’s Esimit Europa II. She returns this year under new Dutch owner Remon Vos. Since changing hands Black Jack won line honours in June’s Loro Piana Giraglia. On that occasion Vos was recovered from an unrelated injury, so Palermo-Montecarlo will be the first time he has sailed on board.

In 2015, as Esimit Europa II, Black Jack set the present race record of 47 hours, 46 minutes and 48 seconds. According to skipper Tristan le Brun their routing shows breaking the record as being possible this time, but warns the forecast is highly uncertain. “The weather is getting more and more interesting: It will be a fast upwind race at the start and a slower race at the end. It will be challenging past Bonifacio to predict what the wind will do - there is a hole in the wind, so right now we don’t know what we’ll have. It looks like it will be quite slow at the end.”

While typically the Palermo-Montecarlo is a mid-summer light airs race, on this occasion there is a strong Mistral blowing in the Golfe du Lion but since this is southeasterly, the navigators will have their work cut out finding the best route through the lee of mountainous Sardinia while the passage between Corsica and the finish is anyone’s bet.

Black Jack is unlikely to have it all her own way. While her crew is largely new to their new steed, the crew on Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft Lucky not only is packed with former America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race winners but they have been campaigning her both as Lucky and as Rambler 88 for almost a decade.

“There will be quite a bit of upwind sailing - definitely for the first part of the race, approaching Porto Cervo,” anticipates Joca Signorini, past Volvo Ocean Race winner and Lucky’s tactician. Getting to the gate could be challenging: “We might have to approach from the east - not ideal because it means more distance and upwind. At the moment it looks like there is a narrow band of wind we’ll have to play on our way up there.

“On the second part, if we are lucky we’ll have wind.” At the moment the approach to Monaco is looking light, giving them a ‘best guess’ ETA as Thursday afternoon.

Black Jack will be their benchmark and Signorini acknowledges that sailing upwind or in light conditions are not ideal for their beamy powerful 88ft speedster, whereas they are for their rival. “It should be a nice race. There will be opportunities for everyone. At the moment the forecast looks like it is a bit more on their side because they are longer and narrower. We are working hard trying to set up the boat in the best way possible so we can give Black Jack a hard time. We’ll wait and see - there are many tricky bits on this course.”

It will also be the first offshore race for the Balcaen family’s former Maxi 72 Balthasar. Since acquiring her, the Balcaens have made the former Alegre/Caol Ila R/Notorious more offshore-orientated, adding one tonne of water ballast, changed to hydraulic winches, plugging the numerous holes in her deck and removing some of her specialist inshore racing kit. While Balthasar competed in the inshores at Loro Piana Giraglia, tactician Bouwe Bekking admits they weren’t firing on all cylinders. Palermo-Montecarlo, in which son Louis Balcaen will skipper Balthasar, will not only be their first offshore but their first time racing at full steam.

As to Tuesday’s race Bekking predicts: “There is 10-14 knots at the start which is more than we’ve ever had before [at the start of this race], at least in the races I’ve done! It looks like there is nice breeze in the gap, but it is the Mediterranean - anything can happen. We had huge thunderstorms here yesterday.”

The other maxis are the 28.27m long 1994 vintage ketch Orsa Maggiore, campaigned by Italy's Marina Militare under skipper Guiseppe Parrini and the VO65 Sisi.

The first warning signal off the CVS clubhouse in Palermo’s Mondello district will be at 11:55 local time.