For the keen sailor who followed the weather forecast leading up to this classic offshore race race, they must have been confused as to how to prepare their boat and crew for this offshore race.

Local weather forecast compared to “Windfinder” was showing a different weather pattern for the whole week and finally, the 25 knots Easterly forecasted “Windfinder” came through. Right on the nose!

Whilst the start was full of excitement with spinnaker hoists, tacks, gybes and drops, the fleet steadied out once out of Marsamxett Harbour with a constant 13 knots of wind from the East giving the fleet a fetch heading North towards the Vega Oil Platform. The longer, larger boats could not have asked for better conditions. A quick fetch up followed by a nice run down.

However, midway through the day, the smaller boats were the ones who got the punishment with rain, thunder and squalls of 35 knots thus forcing the whole “Class B” fleet to retire except for Anton Calleja on board “Spirit of the Wind”. From then on, the wind veered to the North East, thus making Vega on one tack an impossible task. From the larger fleet “Allegra” had to retire due to gear failure. “Mischief” was first to retire with Martin Beachum claiming “Sail Preservation” as his final decision maker. .

This left “Strait Dealer” and “Kerisma” the two “out and out” race boats to do battle followed by Jon Gambin on TonTon, a Dufour 44. They rounded Vega in this order and finished this way with David Franks just beating Sonke Stein by a mere 41 seconds on corrected time.

“TonTon” finished third across the line and on corrected, thus becoming a headache for many local boats to compete against. Strait Dealer eventually on by just 41 seconds on corrected time.

In “Class A” Elusive finished in fourth place followed by “Rebel”, “Maltese Falcon” of Matthew Scicluna and finally “Liara B”

In “Class B” Anton Calleja was the class winner as he was the only one to be able to go through the storm and round Vega, thus a very well deserved top spot for Anton and his crew.

Overall results

CLASS A

1 Strait Dealer (J-125 – David Franks) 12.14.49; 2 Kkerisma (KERR 11.3 – Sonke Stein) 12.15.30; 3 Tonton (DUFOUR 44 – Jon Gambin) 12.23.23.

CLASS B

1 Spirit of the Wind (DUFOUR 40 – Anton Calleja) 13.40.49