Palermo-Montecarlo line honours and record for Black Jack

One of the windiest and most competitive Palermo-Montecarlo races concluded for the maxi yachts today with Remon Vos’ 100ft Black Jack claiming line honours and setting a new race record. Finishing 43 minutes and 11 seconds later, after a tight race, Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft Lucky (the former Rambler 88) won the Maxi Class under IRC corrected time.

Organised by the Circolo della Vela Sicilia (CVS) in partnership with the Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) and Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS), the Palermo-Montecarlo was the concluding event of the International Maxi Association’s 2023-24 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge (MMOC), which began last autumn with the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Five maxis competed in this 19th Palermo-Montecarlo among the full fleet of 50+ that set sail on Tuesday 20 August from Mondello, just west of Sicily’s capital. The boats crossed a mandatory scoring gate off Porto Cervo before continuing on past Corsica to the Montecarlo finish. While Louis Balcaen’s former Maxi 72 Balthasar come home a worthy third both on the water under IRC corrected time, with the VO65 Sisi still to finish at the time of writing, all eyes were on the tight battle for the line honours between Black Jack and Lucky.

Black Jack joined the race with new owner Remon Vos stepping on board for the first time ever (Black Jack won line honours in June’s Loro Piana Giraglia but Vos was not on board). She was sailing with a mix of French and Dutch plus some of previous owner Peter Harburg’s Australian crew, including former skipper Mark Bradford.

Meanwhile Lucky this year has competed in the Aegean 600 but this was only the second outing for her brand new rig, following her unfortunate dismasting in last year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Both Black Jack and Lucky have canting keels but otherwise their designs are chalk and cheese: the shorter newer Lucky (launched in 2015 as Rambler 88), having a lineage based on VO70s with a beamy, powerful hull, while Black Jack is longer, slender and older (launched in 2005 as Alfa Romeo II) and, sporting a tiny dense tungsten bulb, is the better light wind machine. This played out in the Palermo-Montecarlo with Lucky prevailing upwind and reaching when the breeze was up and stability required while Black Jack came into her own when the wind dropped and finally swung aft in the latter stages.

With a mistral raging to the west of Sardinia, over the first night the Palermo-Montecarlo fleet erred east of rhumb line to the Porto Cervo turning mark, else risking falling into the lee of Sardinia. For the most part Lucky had the upper hand here. “Our plan was to be north of them,” explained her Brazilian tactician Joca Signorini. “We knew it would be tricky. On starboard on the final approach to Sardinia, we were in a good position and then got the best out of the big left hand shift there.”

Lucky crossed the Porto Cervo gate at around 1600 on Wednesday with Black Jack seven minutes astern. The two headed up Bomb Alley, between the Maddalena archipelago and the Sardinian mainland and it wasn’t until they started tacking up southwest Corsica that finally Black Jack passed her rival.

Before the start the weather forecast indicated the possibility being marginal of breaking the race record of 47 hours 46 minutes and 48 seconds that Black Jack had set in 2015 (as Igor Simčič’s Esimit Europa II). But as the race progressed, conditions between Corsica and Monaco improved for the leaders. They experienced 25-28 knots and a lumpy sea once through the Strait of Bonifacio, but then experienced similarly strong winds off northwest Corsica that permitted Lucky to recover miles on her rival.

Ultimately Black Jack made it through the last transition first and extended away to finish at 08:34:14 this morning, in an elapsed time of 44 hours 34 minutes 14 seconds, taking more than three hours off the record. Lucky finished at 09:18:57 but won under IRC corrected time by 46 minutes.

“What more could we ask for?!” commented a delighted Tristan le Brun, skipper of Black Jack. “This was the first race with the new owner and we put on an amazing show. He is over the moon.”

Of their race with Lucky, le Brun continued: “We were hanging on to them - we knew they were going to be faster in these conditions upwind and reaching and they were for the first two thirds of the race. We knew it was all about staying close to them - we couldn’t pull away because we don’t have their righting moment and as soon as there is 15 knots they go like a rocket. When the wind got complex, we had our opportunity and pulled away from them… twice. They came back when the wind picked up but the second time we did it in a way that they couldn’t come back…”

On board Lucky, Signorini, American owner Bryon Ehrhart and their all-star cast of America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race legends enjoyed the close competition. “It is always great when you have these big boats in long battles,” said Joca Signorini. “We are very happy. The crew did a fantastic job. We managed to sail our boat very accurately and in the way we needed to - Black Jack sailed well and deserved their win. We were trying our best to get in their way but the last transition zone was difficult for us to manage in the light breeze.”

After the heinous conditions Lucky experienced in July’s Aegean 600, the Palermo-Montecarlo weather was comparatively sedate with the wind into the mid-20s once passing along the weather shore of Corsica.

“We are very happy,” continued Signorini. “Congratulations to Bryon [Ehrhart] who put a lot of effort into getting the boat together for this season. We are all pleased with the effort we put in, setting up the boat to be competitive against Black Jack. It was very good race.” Compared to their Aegean 600 set-up Lucky was fitted with her longer canting keel and lighter bulb configuration for this race.

The winner of the IMA’s MMOC will be announced shortly with the winner set to receive their prize at the IMA Members’ Dinner during September’s Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup.