13th RORC Caribbean 600: Monohull "Line Honours" awarded: First victory: "Skorpios" ahead of "Comanche"

1 day, 16 hours, 39 minutes and 51 seconds - that's the winning time of the ClubSwan 125 "Skorpios" at the 13th edition of the RORC Caribbean 600, enabling Dmitry Rybolovlev's crew, led by Spanish skipper and 2008 Tornado Olympic champion Fernando Echavarri, to beat their slightly smaller rival "Comanche" by just under an hour, win the Caribbean classic at the very first start and take the line honours in the monohull category.

"It was the first RORC Caribbean 600 for 'Skorpios', for me and for some of the crew," said Fernando Echavarri. "I'm super proud of the whole team for making this possible. It was an incredible achievement just to be here. It was a very interesting race, challenging for the crew with the sail changes and very tactical. The speed of 'Skorpios' was a key factor, but also the management of the many changes when rounding the islands." The RORC Caribbean 600 is also known as "The Race of the Eleven Islands" because it leads to and from Antigua through the Caribbean island world in so many different ways. Off Guadeloupe, "Skorpios" had briefly parked in the slipstream and raised the hopes of the crew on the fast VPLP/Verdier one-hundred-footer "Comanche", which was travelling at 16 knots, but in the end the longer "Skorpios" could not be beaten by "Comanche".

Like the other top boats in the Caribbean classic, the "Skorpios" crew was peppered with many well-known professionals from the America's Cup and The Ocean Race: Sailing with owner Dmitry Rybolovlev were skipper Fernando Echavarri, Pepe Ribes Rubio, Bruno Zirilli, Matteo Celon, Claudio Celon, Antonio Cuervas Mons, Dirk de Ridder, Viktor Filippov, Bruno Garcia Del Blanco, Aleix Gelabert, Carlos Hernandez, Brad Jackson, Michael Joubert, Andrei Konogorov, Neal McDonald, Juan Meseguer, Antony Mutter, Michael Pammenter, David Pella, Elliot Pilcher, Nicolas Pruvost, Fernando Rodriguez Rivero and Russell Whitworth. "Comanche" skipper Mitch Booth from Australia, whose crew won the RORC Transat Race just a few weeks ago in a new record time in the absence of the "Skorpios", praised the winners: "They did a good job and defended their position very well."

What the performances of the first two IRC Super Zero yachts will be worth in the overall IRC standings remains to be seen for a while yet. After "Comanche" crossed the finish line, 57 yachts were still in the running in the IRC classification. According to theoretical projections, the Pac 52 "Warrior Won" was in the lead on Wednesday afternoon, ahead of the Botin 52 "Tala" and the Pac 52 "Callista". This meant that the race and its conditions obviously played well into the hands of the 52s in the IRC system until shortly before the end. Here it goes to the live tracking and the intermediate results (please click!).