Rolex Middle Sea Race, Line Honours for Scallywag 100

After a stop-start 48 hours, the Rolex Middle Sea Race sprang into life overnight, as the leading part of the fleet picked up the fresh southerly blowing from Malta up towards the Strait of Sicily. The net result for those boats that had passed or were passing Favignana yesterday afternoon was some solid stable breeze at long last. For Seng Huang Lee’s Scallywag 100 from Hong Kong, it was just what the doctor ordered to propel the 100 foot / 30.48 metre Maxi to a hard-fought Line Honours victory. Crossing the finish line of the 2024 Rolex Middle Sea Race at 09:43:29 CEST on Tuesday morning, the crew’s elapsed time was two days, 21 hours, 33 minutes and 29 seconds. If only it was so easy.

So far, four yachts have finished the race. Black Jack 100 crossed the line second on the water, 18 minutes behind. After a superhuman tussle, Remon Vos’ 100ft entry was finally and decisively outmuscled on the penultimate leg from Lampedusa to the South Comino Channel. Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft/27m Lucky screamed across the finish 30 minutes later, some redemption for the retirement last year. Balthasar was fourth home, the Maxi72’s waterline length disadvantage was highlighted once her larger rivals hit the open water legs, and able to straight-line. Balthasar has the consolation of the provisional lead in IRC 1 after time correction, and overall, for the moment. The next group of finishers are expected around midnight, and the race is well and truly on for those with aspirations of victory.

“First of all, I am really proud of the team. That’s one the toughest races I’ve done in a 100 footer,” said a clearly relieved David Witt, shortly after docking in Marsamxett Harbour home to the Royal Malta Yacht Club. “We had 40 knot rain squalls, trying to keep the boat in one piece and not tip it over. 90 degree wind shifts and glass outs. More sail changes than anyone else and the boys never made a mistake.”

Tristan Le Brun, racing skipper of Black Jack was clearly disappointed, but philosophical in defeat. He was quick to congratulate the opposition. “Congratulations to Scallywag, this time it is in their favour,” he said. “Scallywag have been very competitive. We were very impressed. They came into the race very well prepared, the boat was functioning very well, they sailed well, their sail changes were fast, good navigation, all of which made life very difficult for us.”

The two boats were locked together for much of the race, as the splits around the course show:

Capo Passero: Black Jack by 14 minutes; Messina: Black Jack by 58 mins; Stromboli: Black Jack by 15mins; Favignana: Scallywag by 14 mins; Pantelleria: Black Jack by 22 mins; Lampedusa: Black Jack by 16 mins; Finish: Scallywag by 18 mins.

In a race with so many stops and starts, twists and turns, Scallywag’s hallelujah moment came with 110nm left to run. David Witt continues: “In terms of key decisions, plenty could have lost us the race, but the critical point was rounding Lampedusa. I thought we were going to take a tack, but Juan (Vila) pointed to a cloud and said: ‘we are going over to it’. He said: ‘we are going into the cloud, it will look like it is terrible, but we will come out on the other tack, we’ll be 30 degrees higher, and we will have a shot’. When Juan Vila says something like that, you do what he says.”

Clearly one of Scallywag’s best judgments ahead of the race was the appointment of Vila as navigator, as Witt confirmed: “What a decision to get him for the race for this race. We’d still be out there if he wasn’t on board. Black Jack did the smart thing at Lampedusa and tacked away from the cloud. Juan’s call was impressive, and it was a privilege to have him on board as our navigator. He’s a legend.”

Vila from Spain, a former round the world race winner, suggested this pivotal call was more a throw of the dice. “It is usual for the Rolex Middle Sea Race to be a difficult race. It is always very tricky,” he advised. “We constantly had to figure out what the wind was going to do next. It was a very intense race. The last opportunity at Lampedusa to split against Black Jack was one of the biggest moments. We had to try our luck, and it worked out well for us.”

His crew mates would disagree it had anything to do with luck. “Before we had rounded the island, Juan came up on deck and said: ‘there is a cloud to the south on the other side. We are going to sail through that before we tack’. You never sail into clouds. We did, we got very wet, but it worked. I’ve never seen anything like it.” said Pete Cumming, who was on the MOD70 Argo, when it set the outright race record in 2021.

The Spanish sailor is clearly someone to be listened to. “It is probably one of the toughest races I have had to navigate,” he remarked. “It was non-stop, one thing after another, lots of changes, lots of things to figure out and the weather models were not always right. There were a lot of things to look at, a lot of information and a lot of key moments to get right.” Vila was also complimentary about the competition: “Black Jack is an excellent boat and an excellent crew. They did really well and if it was not for that last opportunity they would have won this race easily. They had been sailing very smart. Both boats did the best job they good to try to be safe when ahead and to find an opportunity when behind.” Vila was also disarmingly honest about how fortunate they had been to have Black Jack slightly in front at the bottom of the course: “It worked out well for us. We managed to get the shift to the right from the northeast to the south east. That put us to windward of Black Jack, slightly behind but in a good position to crack sheets and go fast. If we had been on our own, we would have done what Black Jack did. Being behind it is almost easier when you need to find a chance to split.”

The Black Jack crew were already keenly aware by the halfway mark at Favignana that they needed to find something special in the remaining 300 miles. It was not going to be easy, and frankly was in the lap of the gods. Wind from the southeast was due to fill the remaining course area, and the angle would be good for a muscular reaching Maxi like Scallywag. “Going south, it was really calculated and fully in control,” explained Le Brun. “In an ideal world we would have pulled away further, because we were very aware that towards the end, reaching upwind in 20 knots is a strength of Scallywag. They are just faster. It was a smart tactical decision at Lampedusa. We thought what they did was the best. We did not have the gap we needed, tried to take a different route and tried to play with the luck. It did not work out.”

For Witt, the opportunity spotted by Vila was all Scallywag needed. “Scallywags never give up and we really needed this result,” he said. “As soon as we realised we had a sniff of a chance everyone gave it everything. The Black Jack sailed their boat fantastically well. I thought they did an outstanding job. We are just lucky we never gave up.”

The faces of the Scallywag team showed this was more than just a race win. The yacht had undergone an extensive refit in 2023, and on its first real outing at the Rolex Sydney Hobart last December had to retire after breaking the bowsprit. This was an opportunity to prove the original and subsequent effort was worthwhile. “This result is justification for everything,” said Witt. “We thought we had the package right, but until you get a result you don’t know. This is a really prestigious race, a fantastic race, and we would love to come back and do it again.”

Despite the evident sense of frustration that, having held the lead so often in the race, it was not possible to execute, Le Brun was quick to compliment owner Remon Vos and the crew for an impressive effort. “At the end of the day, this is a team sport, and this is the most important part of it,” he commented. “We were a great team before the start. We were a great team during the race. And now, we are a great team after the finish line even if we are not where we want to be. In this race some things are not predictable, and a good team shows it is constantly looking for solutions and supporting each other to solve what is going wrong.” Black Jack were undoubtedly more than a good team.

Following Lucky’s third place finish, Balthasar, with Louis Balcaen at the helm, finished the Rolex Middle Sea Race in an elapsed time of three days, one hour, 30 minutes and 25 seconds, and currently sits atop the provisional leaderboard after IRC time correction. There is plenty left in this race, but the crew were understandably satisfied with their performance. "Balthasar is a family project, the whole idea is to combine my friends who are amateurs with professional sailors such as Bouwe Bekking," explained Louis Balcaen. “The first night was a bit sketchy, we got caught by the thunderstorm going downwind and we had the kite up which proved very difficult to get down. We did a lot of research before we bought the Mark Mills design and we refitted it so we can do offshore and inshore events. This was the first big test, and the boat performed amazingly, the boat is very strong.”

Watch Captain Stu Bannatyne has competed in eight round the world races, winning four. “This was a classic Rolex Middle Sea Race in respect of the fact that there were occasions when you could win or lose a lot,” he commented. “In Messina, we managed to come with some nice breeze and stay close to the bigger Maxis, that was really nice to have those boats as tell-tales up ahead and to keep our motivation high.” Things became trickier between Stromboli and Favignana: “We just lost touch with the leading pair, and they got away in the breeze. The smaller boats caught us up with wind coming from behind, which was frustrating, but it is what you expect in this race.” The answer was to dig deep and crack on. “We did manage to catch up to Lucky a couple of times. We didn’t quite pass them, but it was good motivation. We just pushed hard all the way to the end.”

More yachts are expected to finish overnight, and by tomorrow evening we should have a clearer idea of who has a chance of overall victory under IRC time correction. Today, though, is Scallywag’s day.

IRC 1
Four boats are in the clubhouse, with Balthasar securing a solid near 14 hour lead over Lucky. Scallywag sits in third, and Black Jack fourth. Three yachts remain on the course, the VO 65s both passing Favignana, the Gerwin Jansen skippered Sisi from Austria and the Lithuanian entry, Ambersail 2 owned by Raimundas Daubaras, plus the VO70 Dinzer Doo, currently en route to Pantelleria and skippered by Mika Thomas and Daniel Thomas, from the United States.

IRC 2
An exceptional class combat continues. Jean Pierre Barjon’s Botin 65 Spirit of Lorina leads on the water and is expected in before midnight. Nine miles adrift, but in close company, Stefan Jentzsch’s Botin 56 Black Pearl, Carl-Peter Forster’s German TP52 Red Bandit and Eric de Turckheim’s 54ft Teasing Machine are boat for boat racing. Red Bandit is the lowest rated and at the Lampedusa transit held a near two hour lead over Teasing Machine, with Black Pearl a further hour behind. Franco Niggeler’s Cookson 50 Kuka 3 is separated from the group, but was fourth around Lampedusa only 20 minutes behind Black Pearl.

IRC 3
Once again it is Géry Trentesaux’s Sydney 43 Long Courrier that has made the best of a bad situation, wriggling clear of the glue that had stuck her to the rest of her class after they compressed off San Vito lo Capo. Having just rounded Pantelleria, the lowest rated boat in the class holds a 20 mile lead over Walter Watermann & Lars Hückstädt’s GP42 X-Day. On IRC time correction at Favignana, with all bar four yachts passed, Long Courrier’s lead was 6 hours over Renzo Grotessi’s Swan 42 BeWild and X-Day, a further four hours back. The Farr 45 Sagolo Sportivento is still in the mix, only 10 minutes behind X-Day.

IRC 4
Maltese First 45 Elusive 2, sailed by Aaron, Christoph and Maya Podesta, continues to dominate IRC 4 leading by nearly 4.5 hours after IRC time correction at the Favignana transit. First 53 Yagiza, skippered by Nikki Henderson, is still ranked second in class and has managed to nearly match Elusive for speed, but is significantly behind on corrected time. Elusive and Yagiza are now speeding away from the rest of their class, having made the new wind south of Favignana. Marco & Isacco Cohen’s French MAT 12 Dajenu has put in a decent shift, moving up to third in class, according to the tracker

IRC 5
Seb Ripard and Dan Calascione’s Maltese Farr 30 Calypso still has a significant lead in IRC 5, but in the light breeze experienced today and last night, the boats behind have been narrowing the gap. However, Calypso was the first to round Favigana, just after 17:00, and is sailing into a very fresh south easterly wind. She will no doubt recapture some of three lost miles. Two teams that chose to go offshore in search of more wind have profited. The Stefan Debattista & Sam O’Byrne skippered Maltese IMX 40 Geisha is second in class according to the tracker. Kay-Johannes Wrede and Oomke Möller’s German Swan 44 Best Buddies is third.

IRC 6
It has been slow going for the boats racing in IRC 6. Positioned north of Sicily, none of the boats have raced more than 100 miles in the last 24 hours. However, there will be excitement aboard the Maltese youth team skippered by Claudio Bugeja racing J/109 JYS Jan, which was ranked first in class according to the tracker. Jean Christophe Cascailh’s French Sun Fast 3200 Milou drops to second, but only by ten minutes. Ranked third with more joy for the Jarhead Young Sailors Foundation is the J/109 Jarhead skippered by Gary Mercieca.

Double Handed Class
The leading double-handers have had an awful day, drifting around to the north of Sicily. The First 36 Marina 21 from Greece, skippered by Milan Kolacek and Milan Tomek, has passed San Vito lo Capo and is at last pointing south towards the Egadi Islands. The John Ripard and Tommy Ripard skippered, Swan 47, Lazy Duck is 16 miles in arrears but appears to be leading under time correction. The Sun Fast 3300 Alquimia skippered by Francesco Cerina and Matteo Uliassi, lay in third.

Class 40
Three of the remaining Class 40s Mikael Mergui’s Centrakor, Matteo Sericano’s Lucente and Aurelien Ducroz’s Marvic40 are blasting south towards Pantelleria, with Centrakor holding a small lead. Marie Goulven’s Espoir and Michael Pühse’s Talanta continue to make slow progress and are just north of the gulf of Castellammare.