What on Tuesday looked like a straightforward line honours win in the Rolex Middle Sea Race ahead for Steinlager Mediterranean Bank Thuraya, this was yesterday turned on its head as overnight the former Whitbread Round the World Race winner was slowly caught, match raced and then finally overhauled on the final leg towards Malta, beaten to the Valletta finish line by Carlo Puri Negri’s Farr 70 Atalanta II.

On Tuesday evening Steinlager II rounded the island of Lampedusa, the most southwestern corner of the race course, at 9.30pm followed by Atalanta II at 11.10pm. But on the 90 mile beat upwind towards the passage between Malta and its small neighbouring island, Comino, the newer Italian sloop proved to have better speed upwind. Eventually as the two boats were in sight of the Comino channel, Atalanta II pulled ahead, helped when Steinlager II broke a genoa halyard. Eventually it was Atalanta II which was first to come into view round Tigne Point crossing the Royal Malta Yacht Club finish line beneath the Valletta ramparts at 13:44:06 local time. Flying into Marsamxett Harbour under her giant red spinnaker and mizzen spinnaker Steinlager II followed her crossing the line at 13:51:09.

“We fought all the race because we made a mistake near Stromboli and Steinlager got 30 miles in front,” explained Atalanta II’s owner Carlo Puri Negri, who has competed in the race before aboard his 60 footer, Grampus. “Then it was just a race trying to catch him and this happened just one hour before the finish. The only problem was that we stayed near Stromboli for 17 hours doing one knot each hour. That was a bit long.”

Part of the match racing skill shown by Atalanta II towards the finish came from Luna Rossa Challenge America’s Cup skipper Francesco de Angelis. “The leg between Pantelleria and Lampedusa was very good for us and then the beat we did last night was good. That put us back into the hunt and this morning we got the last shift. We crossed behind them a couple of times, sailing our own race and at one stage we came together, which was a good moment for us to split and by the next cross we were ahead,” said an unshaven de Angelis, looking ready to drop from exhaustion. The crew had not expected to take so long and was just on the verge of running out of food and drink on board.

Damiano Lipani and Filippo Molinari, two friends from Rome who had chartered Steinlager for the Rolex Middle Sea Race, were ecstatic about their race, despite losing.

“Steinlager is a very fast boat downwind, but not so fast upwind, while we were seeing that Atalanta was much faster upwind,” said Molinari. Even if their halyard hadn’t broken, the outcome would have still been the same, thinks Molinari, who had steered the boat at the start, while Lipani took the helm at the finish.

Third placed Farr 52 Nabatea of Pierre-Eric Detroyat was yesterday afternoon making good progress on the final leg towards Malta and was expected early evening.

However the majority of the fleet has spent much of the day becalmed northwest of the island of Pantelleria. Unfortunately the forecast ahead is showing no reprieve with large areas of flat calm over the race course for the next three days. The cut-off arrival time for the race is 8am on Saturday.

Carbonaro’s Bordeaux and Simon Camillieri’s XL have given the island a wide berth, making a big loop round to the Tunisian coast.

Due to the light weather forecast several more boats have retired including the two Swans Spirit of Jethou and Fenix.

44 yachts from the original fleet of 58 are still racing, with twelve having retired and two having finished.

The final prize giving is at noon on Saturday in La Valette Hall at the Mediterranean Conference Centre.