Conditions bearing little relation to the forecast, a handful of retirements and generally great progress have been the features of the first 24 hours of the 26th Rolex Middle Sea Race.
Having left the Maltese capital of Valletta on Saturday morning, the boats have made the crossing to Sicily and spent the night making their way up the east coast of Italy's largest island towards the Strait of Messina.
The Strait separates Sicily from the Italian mainland and is two miles wide at its narrowest.
The Whitbread maxi ketch Steinlager II Mediterranean Bank Thuraya passed through the Straits between 8.30am and 9am local time yesterday morning, neck and neck with Carlo Puri Negri's Farr 70 Atalanta II. They were followed by the Volvo Ocean 60 Amer Sport One around one hour later by Nick Lykiardopulo's Ker 55 Aera and then Sir Peter Ogden's Swan 601 Spirit of Jethou and the French Farr 52 Nabatea.
At around 4pm in the afternoon Steinlager II had pulled ahead and had completed the 38 mile leg north to Stromboli and its tiny neighbour Strombolicchio.
At the time the wind was a completely unforecast southwesterly, putting them once again on the wind en route to Palermo, but Granada anticipated that the wind would die this evening. The boat was in good shape except for some blown out sails and a broken halyard.
So far there have been four retirements in the Rolex Middle Sea Race. Sandro Cagnoni's Qu Kal with mainsail damage,was followed yesterday’s morning by Daniele Abolaffio's Rodman 42 Extasy and yesterday afternoon by Riccardo Camia's My Song. However first to retire on Saturday night was Pieter Vroon's new 56 footer Formidable 3.
Boat captain, Freddie Hall described the conditions last night as being more lumpy than it should have been due to the wind and after the boats had had a good run up to Sicily in southeasterly breeze, a squall had passed over the fleet complete with thunder and lightning.
On the other side of this the wind suddenly and unexpectedly filled in from the northwest. Putting the boats hard on the wind up to the Strait of Messina. It was after an hour of these conditions, while lying fourth on the water, that Formidable3 suffered her steering problem.
While a majority of boats hugged the coast of Sicily on the approach to the Strait of Messina, several boats headed a long way offshore, the extreme case being Willem Mesdag's Swan 62RS Constanter.
The tide turned against the boats at 12.30pm local time yesterday and two of the last boats to make it through before then were the leading Maltese boat, David Franks' J/125 Strait Dealer with America's Cup sailor Chris Dougall on board as skipper and the Czech yacht Bohemia Express.
Further back, the race's most capped competitor Arthur Podesta on the Beneteau 45F5 Elusive reported 17 knot headwinds approaching the Strait. "We're moving well and ploughing through the waves. We've had a lot of sail changes since the start of the race, with lots of wind variations, but the crew is working hard and handling it well." On board their fishing has been successful rewarding them with a lunch of fresh sushi and cooked tuna.