Some classic contests have spread throughout the fleet on the third day of the 2024 Rolex Middle Sea Race.
While the violence of the first night must feel like a different race as crews negotiate the miserly vagaries of prevailing winds, intra-class battles are developing their own ferocity.
At the front, the pair of 100 foot heavyweight contenders for line honours appear finally to have the two cruiserweight rivals on the ropes.
With 200 nautical miles left in the slugfest, and the lethargic southeasterly only due to improve after dark, there may still be a twist in the tail of this fight.
Among the smaller yachts, overall fleet supremacy under IRC time correction still beckons with the race so far favouring tactical acumen rather than any particular size segment.
Light winds dominated yesterday and overnight.
And even at 16:00CEST today, only those yachts still to round Stromboli are in any sort of breeze.
The leaders, meanwhile, have Pantelleria firmly in the cross hairs after passing Favignana at the northwest corner of the race course this morning. Huang-Seng Lee’s Scallywag 100 from Hong Kong led at the westernmost transit, passing through at 07:50 CEST, with Black Jack only 15 minutes behind.
Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft US entry Lucky went through 90 minutes later, just ahead of the Maxi72 Balthasar. Since then, progress has continued to be made, with Black Jack and Scallywag at last able to impress the advantages of greater waterline length and sail power on the smaller pretenders and open an 11nm lead.
It has been worse behind.
There may be wind at the Aeolian Islands, which stretch out 45nm west from Stromboli, but it goes no further than Alicudi, the most westerly.
This situation is not predicted to change before the early hours of Tuesday morning and, even then, only a little and inconsistently.
To the south of Sicily some big wind is coming from the south east, reaching Malta at midnight tonight and then dominating the southern and western course area for the next 24 hours or so.
In IRC2, Stefan Jentzsch and Black Pearl must wonder if they have offended Poseidon. On Sunday afternoon the German crew, with last year’s winning navigator Marc Lagesse in the roster, pieced together the puzzle after Stromboli to almost make contact with Balthasar, and in the process put 15 miles or so on Red Bandit, Spirit of Lorina, Kuka 3 and Teasing Machine, with whom the Botin 56 had been trading theoretical podium places since the start.
Around 9pm, just as the unthinkable seemed possible, the German yacht came to a standstill, the big four took off and the pursuing pack caught up. Time to start again.
At 16:00, Black Pearl was just west of Trapani, northwest Sicily, with Carl-Peter Forster’s TP52 Red Bandit tight on her tail. Eric de Turckheim’s 54ft Teasing Machine and Jean Pierre Barjon’s Botin 65 Spirt of Lorina have headed close in towards the port town, possibly in the hope that land drainage will carry them around Levanzo and Favignana, and set them going south.
The remainder of the class stretches back to the island of Ustica, with the tiny Elliott 35 Palby Marine and the contrastingly resplendent Nacira 69, 12, bringing up the rear.
The most impressive performance so far is that of Calypso in IRC 5.
Not only is the Seb Ripard and Dan Calascione skippered Farr 30 some 85nm ahead of her classmates (just reaching Stromboli), but the Maltese pocket rocket is midway between Alicudi and Ustica, abreast of the leaders in IRC 4, Elusive 2 and Yagiza, and about to make inroads into the IRC 3 backmarkers, Renzo Grotessi’s BeWild, Aaron Gatt Floridia’s Otra Vez and Alex Laing’s Goose.
It has been an extraordinary piece of sailing, alarmingly reminiscent of last year’s near perfect execution by the equally minnow-like Red Ruby. The key moment in the tale came yesterday at Messina.
The Swan 53 Bedouin led IRC3 into the 20nm strait at about 19:00 on Sunday evening, just ahead of Calypso.
Threading their way north, the pair were broadly in lockstep until Villa San Giovanni on the mainland shore.
As they crossed to the northern shore, just before the exit, Calypso seems to have struck favourable wind and/or current; the Maltese crew making their break for freedom at 23:30.
The Australian crew, meanwhile, were stuck fast only escaping at 04:30, with the rest of the class bunched behind.
Calypso took full advantage, rounding Stromboli at 6.00am and pressing on to the west in what wind was available.
As we go to press, the Guglielmo Giordano & Linda Goddard skippered Bedouin is just about to round Stromboli. With more than half the race to go, it is by no means over given the instability in the wind.
On Sunday afternoon, the First 45 Elusive 2 co-owned by Aaron, Christoph and Maya Podesta seemed to have achieved a similar split from her nearest pursuers. The Maltese yacht entered the Strait with a 15nm lead over the larger British entry, Yagiza, and wiggled clear of the narrow channel some six hours clear.
By Stromboli that lead on the water had shrunk to just under three hours. Yagiza, a First 53, under the leadership of Nikki Henderson, had put in a proverbial shift on the 35nm leg to bite a great chunk out of Elusive’s lead and build a gap to those behind.
Focus had been nearly four hours behind at the Messina transit. At Stromboli, Benoit Tuduri’s S-40 was 11 hours in arrears.
Yagiza took a more northerly routing after the volcanic turning point than Elusive, and the decision seems to have paid off.
The two are currently abreast of Palermo, with Yagiza 15nm to the north of lower-rated Elusive. Another contest worth following.
After a long and tiring 56 hours or so, the back markers in the fleet are through the Messina Strait.
Germaine Williams and Escapado are last on the water, with Enrico Calvi’s Duffy and Stefan Hümmeke’s Infinity just ahead. 33 yachts have retired, with all crew safe, leaving 80 still racing, including the lone multihull, Picamole entered by Aldo Fumagalli.
