By the early hours of yesterday morning, two more yachts had finished the 2007 Rolex Middle Sea Race bringing the number of finishers up to thirteen.
Four yachts remain on the course. Nord Star (Russia), Windsong (Great Britain) and Muzyka (Italy) are in a close bunch doing 8-9 knots halfway between Lampedusa and Malta. The last boat in the race, the German multihull High Q1 is halfway between Pantelleria and Lampedusa. Currently sailing in light a southerly, the wind is expected to strengthen – a relative term – to a steady 10-15 knots as the evening progressed.
The two ‘latest’ finishers are Global Yacht Racing (GBR) at 7.40pm on Wednesday evening and Jonas Diamentino’s Gasan Mamo Insurance Comanche Raider (MLT) at 1.52am on yesterday morning. Both will have enjoyed some excellent sailing over the previous 24-hours but would be excused for feeling frustrated as the winds around Malta faded away for their arrival. Global Yacht Racing, in particular, endured a miserably slow crawl to the line, but greeted their arrival with a noise to match that coming from the ravelin in front of the Royal Malta Yacht Club as they eased across the line.
Basking yesterday in sunshine unimaginable at the start of the race, Martin Scicluna the skipper of Air Malta Falcon one of the two Maltese boats to finish on Wednesday, happily described his race. “We knew about the weather we knew it was going to be tough. Before the race I had a briefing with the crew and told them the situation. I also told them that retirement is not in my vocabulary, so long as the boat is OK and nobody is hurt our intentions was to start the race and finish the race. I told them we would be careful and made sure we had the right sails and food onboard,” commented Scicluna.
Another yacht seemingly surprised at the number of withdrawals whilst being utterly awestruck by the severity of the conditions and the speed at which the squalls would form, die away and return is Slingshot the British double hander.
“It was always going to be challenging because of the weather forecast, so we had that in mind. The boat had been here a year and was well prepared in advance. When we arrived it was ready to race and we didn’t actually go sailing beforehand,” explained co-skipper Shaun Murphy. “Our idea was to race to the top of the Strait and then take a call on the weather. The run up was good. We had a bit of damage to the main when we were hit by 38-knots, so we brought the main down to do a bit of repair. We were under trysail for a while, so we were quite slow at that stage. There was certainly no rush because we knew the weather was up there. Getting to Messina any faster would not help us,” he added.
After the Strait, Slingshot enjoyed a nice reach to Stromboli, but difficulties were not far away. “ The black clouds started to appear just as we approached Stromboli. I can only describe it as a curtain of cloud heading towards us. Strong lightning strikes were hitting the water and we decided to run away from them trying to circumnavigate the thunderstorm. It was at least three to four hours before we could get past the volcano. We saw other boats turning around at this point and even though we knew we were going into heavier weather we decided to carry on. We had the experience and were confident in the boat,” said Murphy.
Murphy has now completed the Rolex Middle Sea Race double-handed on two occasions and is a great favourite at the Royal Malta Yacht Club. He is also a great enthusiast for the race and intends to do it again as often as possible.
Another group that have won many friends this year is the crew of Loki who returned to Malta late on Tuesday after it became clear the yacht was irrecoverable. Owner Stephen Ainsworth and skipper Cameron Miles are clearly affected by the loss of the yacht but are satisfied that there was nothing more they could have done to save Loki and that the decision to abandon was correct.
The final prize giving will be held tomorrow.