Palermo-Montecarlo: "Black Jack 100" sets record in difficult conditions
It is 460 nautical miles from Palermo to Montecarlo, with a gate off Porto Cervo at the northern tip of Sardinia. On Tuesday, 52 participants set off from Mondello at 18 knots, heading north-west of Palermo and into the Strait of Bonifacio. The "Black Jack 100" was the first to reach the finish line off the Principality, clocking up 559 nautical miles and breaking its own record set in 2015 as the "Esimit Europa II" with a time of 44 hours, 34 minutes and 22 seconds.
Palermo-Montecarlo as the offshore final of the Maxis
The Palermo-Montecarlo regatta, organised by the Circolo della Vela Sicilia (CVS) in collaboration with the Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) and the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS), marked the end of the Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge (MMOC). Five maxis took part, including the former Maxi 72 "Balthasar", which has been optimised for offshore use. Belgian Louis Balcaen took third place both in terms of sailing and IRC.
"Black Jack 100" started with the new owner Remon Vos, who was on board for the first time ever. Due to illness, the Dutchman was unable to take part in the Loro Piana Giraglia Lucky was competing in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart and sailed with a mix of compatriots, French and some members of the Australian crew of former owner Peter Harburg, who regularly sailed for Rolex Sydney-Hobart victory. "Lucky", the ex-"Rambler 88", was competing in only her second race with the brand new rig after the Aegean 600, which came down in last year's Rolex Middle Sea Race.
Mistral west of Sardinia influenced routing
As a mistral was raging to the west of Sardinia, the Palermo-Montecarlo fleet moved east of the rhumb line to the Porto Cervo gate on the first night, as otherwise they ran the risk of being caught in the lee of Sardinia. "Lucky" passed the waymark at around 4 p.m. on Wednesday with "Black Jack 100" seven minutes behind. The two crossed Bomb Alley between the Maddalena archipelago and the Sardinian mainland, and it was only when they were in the south-west of Corsica that "Black Jack 100" passed in 25 to 28 knots of wind.
Both "Black Jack 100" and "Lucky" have canting keels, but are otherwise very different in design: Juan K based the 12-foot shorter and newer "Lucky" on the wide VO70 hulls, while the Australian 100-footer is slimmer, was launched back in 2005 as "Alfa Romeo II" and has advantages in light wind conditions. "Lucky" was able to score points with its high dimensional stability in gusting winds.
German crews still in the race for good placings
The German-Swiss JV 43 "RED2" was still 30 nautical miles from the finish line off Montecarlo on Friday afternoon at 6.4 knots boat speed and was therefore theoretically in tenth place in the IRC rankings. The brand new sister ship "Vineta" still had a good 68 nautical miles to go. Sascha Schröder's Neo 430 "Neomind" was fighting for a podium place in the IRC classification.
Stefan Jentzsch's Botin 56 "Black Pearl" (last IRC rank 11) and the modified TP 52 "Red Bandit", which was ranked fifth in the provisional IRC ranking, had already arrived in the Principality. Sophie Waldow said on land: "It was a very tough race with lots of sun and very changeable wind conditions. We always had to be highly focussed, but we are satisfied and are eagerly awaiting the final result."
Here (please click) to go to the Palermo-Montecarlo tracker.
