Since the race start five days ago, the Maltese boat J/122 Artie had been seemingly guided by keen local knowledge, as well as sharp sailing talent. In a race which, this year, has been called ‘tricky’, or ‘challenging’, co-skippers Lee Satariano and Christian Ripard have worked their way around numerous wind holes, keeping the boat moving in light air, as well as hunkered down on the rail, full-metal jacket sailing down the proverbial bomb alley along the west coast of Sicily, and around Pantelleria, and Lampedusa.

After the R/P 100 Esimit Europa 2 claimed line honours on Monday, the Slovenian maxi held the corrected lead, but only until the TP52 Lucky (USA) completed a fantastic lap around Sicily to take the overall handicap lead. Then it was down to Artie, and for a while, fellow Maltese boat Jaru, a J/133, to see if they could beat the clock. Artie had to finish at 8.18am yesterday, and at the various checkpoints of the course that meant averaging around mid-9 knots. They had shown flashes of this speed, so it was all possible. It was pretty impressive sailing in a J/122, a 40-foot performance racer-cruiser class that has had great success at several offshore events, including the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Artie had a fast passage on Tuesday night hitting boat speeds in the high teens, from Lampedusa through the South Comino Channel. Between Gozo and Comino the breeze held out, but around 8am as Artie sailed into Marsamxett Harbour, the breeze dropped away along with any chance of making the cutoff. Crossing the line at 08:44, Artie missed the overall win by a mere 26 minutes.

Owner and co-skipper Lee Satariano could be expected to be disappointed, though he said, “Last night we had a good hour where the boat was just surfing down the waves. I really enjoyed that moment, it was really moving.”

“There was really nothing I would change, we raced the boat to full optimization, but we have only had this boat for a short time and we are very happy with our achievement. We knew on the last day that we were close to having first overall, but from the beginning to the end we were always pushing it to the limit. At no point did we take it easy.”

Artie’s co-skipper, Christian Ripard was also full of wonder about the blast home on the last night. “The last night was just wonderful sailing and the crew had become fully in tune with each other. We were sailing on the edge and that requires precision, something that can only be achieved by perfect harmony which comes with time together on the boat.”

So with that finish missed, it would put American Bryon Ehrhart’s boat, Lucky as provisional leader overall on corrected time in IRC. Ehrhart was at the Royal Malta Yacht Club with his crew earlier yesterday, and spoke about the race and Lucky’s provisional overall win. “It’s beyond my expectations. We came wanting to do a very interesting race, and we had that, and a good performance to match.”

First Maltese boat home was Andrew Calascione’s J/133 Jaru, after three days, 20 hours, 2 minutes.

Retired boats yesterday included Libera, Legally Brunette, Allegra Garmin, and Aziza bringing the total number of retired boats to 12, with 32 boats finished and 32 were still racing