Since Wednesday’s match race for line honours, so larger boats have been trickling into Marsamxett Harbour at the end of the lightest Rolex Middle Sea Race in the event's recent history.
At present Carlo Puri Negri's Atalanta II is not only the winner of the Rolex Middle Sea Race on the water, but also is leading on handicap. The boat to finish nearest to her on corrected time of the six finishers so far has been Pierre-Eric Detroyat's Farr 52 Nabatea, but her time corrected out to 48 minutes behind Atalanta II's and she now holds second overall.
A Greek-owned Farr 52 Optimum 3 won the Rolex Middle Sea Race last year. Nabatea sailed an excellent race making their break as they came out of the Strait of Messina. They then benefitted from being in front, sailing into stronger wind before their rivals. This was despite having blown out their light spinnaker as they entered the Strait.
Nick Lykiardopulo's Ker 55 Aera with Olympic triple medalist Ben Ainslie on board, arrived at 02:28:20 yesterday morning, but with a higher rating than Nabatea, she is at present fourth overall on corrected time.
Fifth home was the first of the two Volvo Ocean 60s, the Croatian AAG Big One. “It was a slow race: cruising actually.sunny and nice weather,” said skipper Marko Murtic. “After Stromboli we were parked for about 20 hours. We were match racing with Aera for a while and then we split during the night and in the morning they were 20 miles ahead – it was really a disappointment.”
Now what we could do.”
Due to the lack of wind, a large group of boats were heading back to Malta under power today. While 12 boats had pulled out from the race by Wednesday afternoon, this number has increased to 28 yesterday.
Most of those retirees had been becalmed on the leeward side of Pantelleria. They started their engines when their crews realised that with the forecast for continued light winds they would not be able to reach the Valletta finish line before the deadline of 8am tomorrow.
Two boats still sailing and having an intense, albeit relatively slow match race were David Franks J/125 Strait Dealer and the Swan 62RS Constanter of Willem Mesdag. Last night the big American Swan was ahead, but she had been overtaken by the Maltese yacht yesterday morning shortly before rounding Lampedusa.
On Wednesday night they made good progress when they encountered a small thundercloud. “We had this cloud which rained on us and then went away,” commented Strait Dealer's navigator Graham Sunderland. Yesterday afternoon they had 5 knots of wind from just north of due east.
Another boat, the Bavaria 46 Flying Colours sailed two handed by Anthony Camilleri and Kevin Gauci Maistre, reports they are determined to continue sailing:
“We have only just got enough wind to keep on going. The few Maltese boats still racing have given us their full support and so our morale has gone up again. We are hoping we will make the time limit but this is not an easy task. Wind is all we need – mercy from the gods of the wind.”
24 yachts from the original fleet of 58 are still racing, with twenty-eight having retired and six having finished.