Powerful maxi turn-out for tomorrow’s Rolex Middle Sea Race

In one of the most competitive fleets ever, 14 maxi yachts are set to be on the start line when the Rolex Middle Sea Race sets sail at 1100 tomorrow (Saturday 19 October) from the Malta’s Grand Harbour. The race is the first in the International Maxi Association’s 2024-25 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge (MMOC), which will conclude next summer with the Palermo-Montecarlo. 

Maxi yachts have long enjoyed success in the Royal Malta Yacht Club’s annual 606 mile anti-clockwise lap of Sicily. They regularly achieve line honours of course, the most remarkable having been the 100ft Comanche's 40 hours 17 minutes 50 seconds monohull race record set in 2021. 

Maxis also have a strong record for winning overall under IRC. In the last 25 years Bob McNeal's Zephyrus IV achieved this in 2000. Those following him have included Charles Dunstone’s Nokia, Carlo Puri Negri's Atalanta, Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory, George David's Ramblers, Andres Soriano's Alegre, culminating in Andrea Recordati's Wally 93 Bullitt, last year’s overall winner.

This year the fight for line honours will be between the 100 footers – Remon Vos’ Black Jack 100 and Seng Huang Lee’ Scallywag 100. The former knows the way having claimed line honours five times (once as Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo II and four as Igor Simčič’s Esimit Europa II). This equals Bryon Ehrhart’s Lucky when she was Rambler 88.

 

Black Jack 100 is also no stranger to the IMA’s MMOC having won in 2022-23 under previous owner Peter Harburg.

Tristan le Brun, skipper of Black Jack 100 is looking forward to the strong maxi competition, having competed here last year with Remon Vos on the ClubSwan 50 P50. “We have an interesting race ahead. Instead of being upwind to Messina, it should be nice downwind/reaching. Then the wind is going to die and it will get more complex - the boats will stay close together and whatever distance there was between us will significantly reduce.”

Given the large number of holes in the weather, their routing presently has them finishing in 2-2.5 days, despite Black Jack 100 being the fleet’s light wind machine.  

Having only acquired her this year, they are still learning the boat. Half her crew is European and half Australian, including tactician Mark Bradford. “We can confidently push her now at 100%, which we didn’t in our first races,” continues le Brun. “The team is now very stable, very tight.” 

Scallywag 100 is led by Australian David Witt with a strong Anglo-Antipodean crew. In her present form this is her first Rolex Middle Sea Race, but her deck went round as Maximus in 2006 when she was second behind Black Jack 100 (as Alfa Romeo II). As Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin 100, her hull was replaced with a more modern design. When they last met in the 2021 Rolex Sydney Hobart, Black Jack 100 won line honours to Scallywag’s third.

American Bryan Ehrhart won the 2010 Rolex Middle Sea Race outright with his TP52 Lucky. Now campaigning the former Rambler 88, he returns to brush away the demons after dismasting in last year’s race. In record time his team had a new spar built and shipped to Europe enabling Lucky to claim monohull line honours in this summer’s Aegean 600 and Palermo-Montecarlo’s Maxi class. 

“The 100 footers will be hard to beat – they are built for these conditions,” admits tactician Brad Butterworth, pleased to be back sailing after America’s Cup management duty with Alinghi Red Bull Racing. “We’ll have a hard time holding on to them, but anything can happen. Yesterday it was looking like you could get to Messina in daylight but I have never done that – it’s a myth!” 

Andrea Recordati returns having won the Rolex Middle Sea Race outright in 2023. This year his Wally 93 Bullitt has Dutch navigator Marcel van Triest on board for the first time. Tactician Joca Signorini says the team are looking forward to the strong maxi competition: “It’s good to see the Rolex Middle Sea Race becoming one of the big offshore races. Last year we already saw some pedigree maxis like Lucky, Pyewacket 70 and Spirit of Malouen X. Now we have Black Jack and Scallywag…”

Of the weather, Signorini echoes Butterworth’s feelings: “It is all about the trough which will be very close to Malta at start time. There is a lot of uncertainty as the race goes on in terms of how things will develop. It won’t be a fast race, but that’s the fascinating thing about this - it is tricky and there is a level of uncertainty over the weather: last year we led the monohulls out of Messina and in 2022 we led at Stromboli against Leopard 3. This year the two 100s have pace when it is light. We hope we can beat them on corrected time. We will also get a hard time from smaller boats - the 72 and the 52s. They are fast and when the wind stops for us, they will come in from behind…” 

The 72 competing is the former Alegre/Caol Ila R/Notorious, being sailed by Louis Balcaen and a team including Bouwe Bekking and Stu Bannatyne. They will face a trio of former Volvo Ocean Race boats – the VO65s Ambersail and Sisi and the first generation VO70 Dinzer Doo newly acquired by Utah-based father-daughter Daniel and Mika Thomas.

This year the smaller maxis are competing in IRC 2. The line-up includes Luigi Sala’s ever improving crew on the Vismara 62 Yoru, recent class winner at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. The favourite has to be Jean-Pierre Barjon’s Botin 65 Spirit of Lorina, the 2021-22 IMA MMOC winner. When she last competed in the Rolex Middle Sea Race in 2023 she finished an impressive second overall under IRC and won class. 

“The weather is looking uncertain - a few days ago it was pretty nice, but it is getting lighter and lighter,” observes Spirit of Lorina boat captain Benjamin Epron. “At the start we might miss the stronger wind, but we’ll see. We hope there is some good wind because the weak point for our boat is light airs…. In that it will be difficult against the TPs, but it is good to be one of the biggest boats in our class.”

IRC 2 also includes the Aegean 600-winning Scuderia 65 Hagar V of Hungary's Gregor Stimpfl, the sleek Vismara 80 Luca Guida of Jean-Michel Caye and 12 Nacira 69.

by James Boyd/International Maxi Association