Big breeze and hot competition forecast for Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup

With 20+ knots and gale force gusts predicted, crews and the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s race management team will have their work cut out for this week’s Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup – the pinnacle event in the International Maxi Association’s Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge.

Racing is due to get underway for the 43 boat fleet at 1200 on Monday 9 September and will run until Saturday 14 September with a layday scheduled for Thursday. But given Monday’s forecast, showing 25-30 knots gusting to 40+, racing seems unlikely.

“It is looking windy,” confirmed Simon Fisher, navigator on Galateia. “There is a front coming through tonight and a Mistral tomorrow and Tuesday. Wednesday, we should be into sailing conditions, but it's windy at the end of the week too…”

Many grand prix maxi yachts here have been optimised for inshore racing, with no reefs, so that, like most inshore classes, they struggle in 25+ knots. Meanwhile another constraint here are the potential dangers of entering Porto Cervo harbour in a westerly gale.

Inclement weather aside, the competition this week is formidable across all six classes. For the first time Maxi 1 (IRC TCC 1.700-2.200; LH <30.50m/100ft) will be competing for their own World Championship – the exclusive rights to which are granted to the IMA by World Sailing. Ten boats will be fighting for the IMA Maxi 1 World Championship, including five 100 footers: the familiar trio of former Wallycentos - Karel Komarek's V, Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones' Magic Carpet Cubed and the defending champion here, Galateia, campaigned by joint owners - David M Leuschen and Chris Flowers. They will be up against the more offshore-optimised Leopard 3 of Joost Schuijff and SHK Scallywag of Seng Huang Lee, the highest rated in Maxi 1.

“World Championships are just a wonderful thing to be a part of,” states V’s tactician Ken Read. “It adds a different set of pressures and expectations in an event. The level of preparation has ramped up for all these boats.”

Perhaps the 100s being locked in battle will favour the smaller Maxi 1 yachts? These are the Wally 93 Bullitt of YCCS Commodore Andrea Recordati, outright winner of last year's Rolex Middle Sea Race, plus Pier Luigi Loro Piana's Club Swan 80 My Song. Wendy Schmidt's 85ft all-out racer Deep Blue returns while the 82ft Django HF is a previous winner here as Highland Fling XI but now features a trim tab and two tonnes of water ballast. Tactician Vasco Vascotto commented: “It is a pleasure to be here racing so many boats. We have added a trim tab and water ballast not just to speed up the boat but also as a tactical tool…”

The big unknown is Alessandro Del Bono’s brand new Capricorno – a Vrolijk-designed 82 footer enjoying her first race here. The team won the 2022 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge with their previous maxi (racing here in Maxi 3 as Nice) when they won their class here.

Four former Maxi 72s are competing in Maxi 2. With 2023 winner Hap Fauth tied up with his American Magic team in Barcelona, this competition is wide open. Peter Harrison’s Jolt, the newest of the foursome, won here in 2021 as Dario Ferrari’s Cannonball.

However her configuration is believed to prefer flat water whereas if conditions are lumpier and windier, George Sakellaris’ Proteus is perhaps favourite - a close runner-up here for the last two editions. Ironically Proteus alone here is still in Maxi 72 trim. Captain Reggie Cole explains: “She is still very fast, but we need to sail extremely well. We have always been a heavier air boat. Some of the advantage of water ballast goes away in 15+ knots [of wind].”

In reality all four could win: Sir Peter Ogden's Jethou at 77ft is the longest, and, among this group, came out on top in both May’s IMA Maxi Europeans and the Loro Piana Giraglia inshores, ahead of Jolt.

Meanwhile North Star’s water ballast has been increased to 1.5 tonnes: “It makes the boats a lot more exciting,” says tactician Nick Rogers. “We go downwind faster and are same speed upwind. It has given older boats - like ours - a new lease of life.” The team is also getting to grips with the unusual twisting rig they fitted last season. “Aerodynamically, you're pointing quite a big section into the wind so a) it is less drag and b) it helps flow of air on to the mainsail.”

The smaller Maxi class, this year, has been split in two. 2023’s run-away leader, Jean-Pierre Barjon’s 65ft Spirit of Lorina, is Maxi 3 favourite this year, especially since she was the 2021-22 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge winner and enjoys tough conditions. “We’ve come back to try to keep our prize,” says Barjon, who decimated competition to win this year’s Loro Piana Giraglia. “After the Giraglia we are very confident with the boat in these conditions. We are very excited and ready to begin.”

All of the top 10 from last year have returned. Despite her 1995 vintage, the former Capricorno - now Alex Laing and Marco Malgara's Nice - is expected to do well, as will Aldo Parisotto's Mylius 65 FD Oscar 3 which finished 3rd in class last year. Former IMA President Thomas Bscher's Baltic 68 Café Racer Open Season is ever improving as are regular competitors Paul Berger's Swan 82 Kallima, the Wally 80 Rose of Sven Wackerhagen, Massimiliano Florio's Southern Wind 82 Grande Orazio and the 68ft Pelotari.Project of Andres Varela Entrecanales. Prize for the furthest travelled crew goes to Craig Clifford and his team on the Vismara 80 Luce Guida, most having flown in from Australia/Tasmania.

Aldo Parisotto’s Oscar 3 was tied on points with second placed H2O in 2023. “This year it is too early to say anything,” says Parisotto of their prospects. “The weather forecast is not really nice, but I hope we will be able to sail for a few days. We have raced in big winds before, but I prefer not to…”

Favourite in Maxi 4 is Riccardo de Michele's 78ft H20, a multiple winner here, but equally formidable can be Giuseppe Puttini's Swan 65 ketch Shirlaf, lowest rated this year. Shirlaf was corrected time winner of this year's Regata dei Tre Golfi, ahead of other Maxi 4 entries, Luca Scoppa’s Dehler 60 Blue Oyster and Vincenzo Addessi’s Mylius 18E35 Fra’Diavolo, also both racing here.

They will face IMA President Benoît de Froidmont's Wally 60 Wallyño, which is to date the only two time winner of the IMA's Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge (and its defending champion). Wallyño finished fifth here last year.

Luigi Sala's Vismara 62 Yoru will be hoping to make amends after her collision in the first race last year. The unofficial inter-Mylius competition will be between Fra’Diavolo, Franz Wilhem Baruffaldi Preis' Mylius 60 FD Manticore and the newest, the 66RS Schorch of Alois Neukirchen. Matteo Fossati and his 64ft Stella Maris will be hoping to repeat last year’ Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez success when they won class, while no Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup is complete without Gerard Logel's Swan 601 @robas.

From the smallest to the biggest: the Super Maxi class, once again racing under ORCsy, this year features five entries, including two Js - Ronald de Waal's Velsheda and Niklas Zennström and Filip Engelbert’s Svea, which at 43.6m is again the longest yacht competing. Last year the Swedish J, based on a 1937 design by Swedish Olympic Tore Holm, won straight bullets in six races here.

In the Super Maxi class, the Js will face additional competition. “We have boats in our division which we have never raced against,” admits Svea’s project manager and main trimmer Tim Powell. “Our regatta is against Velsheda but we’ll see what happens against the others.” As to the big conditions anticipated, Powell says they don’t have a mode for big wind other than using their smallest J3 headsail. “It is all or nothing! They are impressive boats in strong winds. We haven't done a huge amount of racing in strong winds, so it will be a case of getting used to the loads.”

Among the more contemporary maxis, there is likely to be a repeat of the 2023 show-down between former IMA President Claus Peter Offen's Wally 101 y3k, which won the Super Maxi class outright last year, one point ahead of Juan Ball's Swan 115 Moat. Also racing is another Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup regular, Vittorio Moretti’s Maxi Dolphin 118 Viriella.

For a second year the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup features a Multihull class, which will again see a catamaran show-down between Adrian Keller’s 25.5m Allegra and Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18. Last year both won two races, but given the forecast Allegra may have the upper hand again – both boat and crew are renowned offshore specialists, with many more miles under their daggerboards than their opposition. The third catamaran competing this year is Italian Riccardo Pavoncelli’s newly acquired Gunboat 66 Gaetana with a crew led by British multihull veteran Brian Thompson.