Manoel Island Marina has been a hive of activity yesterday as crews of the 58 competing yachts have been making final preparations for today’s start of the Rolex Middle Sea Race. Last minute equipment checks have been made, provisioning and water is being loaded on board, meanwhile navigators have been speaking to their weather experts or scouring websites in search of the latest forecast for the days ahead.

The forecast ahead is for wind in the predominantly southeasterly quadrant ranging from zero to 25 knots, but conditions are notoriously changeable in this section of the Mediterranean particularly at this time of year.

The Rolex Middle Sea Race course is one of the most dramatic in the sailing calendar. The start line is within the confines of Marsamxett Harbour between the Royal Malta Yacht Club on Fort Manoel and the ancient fortified city of Valletta. The forecast promises for a spinnaker start. Once out of the harbour the boats bear northwest and sail along the coast before rounding up and making the 55 mile passage northeast to the southeastern tip of Sicily. At this point, overnight today, the wind is forecast to drop off and the boats will be forced to make the most of the land breeze close in to the Sicilian coast and local knowledge will come into play.

A man who can justifiably claim to have profound local knowledge of this race course is Arthur Podesta, skipper of the Beneteau 45F5 Elusive, who is the only person to have competed in every one of the 25 Rolex Middle Sea Races to date.

Approaching the Strait of Messina competitors pass under the shadow of the 10,991ft tall Mount Etna. During the 2002 race this erupted. “It was at least one third the size of the mountain,” recalls Podesta. “The actual red rocket of lava was at least 300ft up into the sky and the whole of Sicily and Malta were covered in black.”

There follows the most tactical part of the course - the passage through the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and Italy. Here the tide changes every six hours and those who pass through in favourable current get shot through while those astern can wallow. “The worst case scenario for the straits of Messina is no wind,” says Podesta. “If there is wind, the current is possible to overcome, but with a little bit of knowledge it is easy to find out where the adverse and the favourable currents are.” In no wind competitors attempt to follow north-going eddies very close into the coast but in the process can often get spun around by 360 degrees. “We’ve had zero wind, but the spinnaker filling because we were moving backwards on the current - the spinnaker was acting as a brake,” remembers Podesta. At present the wind is looking light and southeasterly for the passage through the Strait.

The boats then continue north, pass another volcano on the island of Stromboli. This volcano is very active, erupting in a small way several times an hour. The fleet round this and head west for Palermo and Trapani, home of the recent America’s Cup regatta. Passing down through the islands on the western side of Sicily the wind can get very gusty and last year for example Neville Crichton’s maxi and line honours winner was knocked down here during a 50 knot gust.

Once free of Sicily the fleet heads south past the mountain island of Pantelleria and on to the southernmost part of the course at Lampedusa. For the passage south to Lampedusa, the wind is expected to pick up to around 15-20 knots, once again from the southeast. The boats will then tack around the island and head back on a northeasterly course to Malta.

“This is all hypothetical, because I always say the person who will master weather forecasting will be a bigger genius than Einstein, particulary around here and particularly at this time of year,” says Podesta.

In the conditions Podesta feels it is unlikely that the course record of 64 hours 49 minutes and 57 seconds set in 2000 by the maxi Zephyrus IV will be broken, even though there are some highly potent entries in the former Whitbread Round the World Race Steinlager Thuraya and Carlo Puri Negri’s Farr 70 Atalanta II.

For the handicap win Podesta says his money is on the smaller boats. “There are some well sailed smaller boats. They are far easier to handle when there are big wind shifts. And the general forecast, favours the smaller boat. The bigger boats need the larger waves to surf on.”

Robert McNeil (USA)’s Zephyrus IV holds the current course record of 64 hours 49 minutes and 57 seconds, established in 2000.