LIne Honours to Esimit Europa 2

Esimit Europa 2, owner IMA member Igor Simcic, was the first maxi on the finish line of 2015 Volcano Race: at 10:37:24 CEST this morning in Gaeta, with an elapsed time of 1 day, 21 hours and 2 minutes, Esimit Europa 2 completed the 391 nautical miles long offshore race and won its 36th consecutive Line honours.

The fleet of nine Maxis, ranging in size from 60ft to 100ft, set sail at 13:35 CEST on  May 20 from the waters off Gaeta, Italy. Esimit Europa 2 lead the fleet all the way down the course, reaching the next mark set at the Alicudi island in the early morning of May 21. Esimit crew then sailed  around the wild volcanic Aeolian archipelago during the daylight, rounding the active volcano of Stromboli and then Strombolicchio before dark. In long upwind sailing, the team headed back north towards the island of Capri, which they passed before dawn to reach the finish line in front of the old town of Gaeta in the morning of today 22 May at 10:37:24 CEST.

The skipper of Esimit Europa 2, Jochen Schümann, said: “This was a beautiful season opener. We had a really good start but then we were a little bit too fast for the front, so we had to keep moving west to catch it again, that slowed us down a little bit compared to others. At the first volcano (Alicudi) we got parked for some time, but the rest of them went really smoothly. We changed a lot of sails during this race, we had about 20 to 30 changes. The boat performed well, we also have some new crew members that were integrated into the team and performed very well. Race is very well organized, great hospitality of the yacht club and I must say that Gaeta is a great starting and finishing point for the Volcano race.”

The founder of the Esimit Europa project, Igor Simčič commented: "I am very proud of this great performance of our team and our yacht, especially because this win is also opening our very special season. Namely, this year marks the 20th anniversary of our project".

The Volcano Race, organized by IMA in collaboration with Yacht Club Gaeta EVS and the Base Nautica Flavio Gioia, is one of the most scenic offshore races in the Mediterranean and this year marks the fifth running of the race.

Esimit Europa 2 took part in the 2014 edition - and also won 2014 Honours.