Those are images from the 2014, a spectacular edition with strong winds, not such look this year but lots of boats racing, many of them performance cruisers and a good race to see what they really worth in med conditions.
For me an additional point of interest is that a sister boat of mine (Prospectica, a Comet 41s) is racing on the double handed division, one of the more interesting regarding performance, since short handed sailing has more to do with cruising than full crewed racing. So far so good, they are in 3th place in real time (2 handed division) and they only have ahead a Solaris 42 and a J109. They are slightly ahead of a First 44.7 and all are beating several race boats among them a Class 950 and a Farr45. Last on the class and on all fleet, a RM 1260.
You can follow the race on the tracker, here:
http://www.rolexmiddlesearace.com/tracker/#pt
As expected the big trimarans are well ahead but on the battle for the fastest monhull the bigger Rambler has trouble to go away from a well sailed VOR70 and both boats are doing about the same speed as the first Multi50 trimaran.
ReplyDeleteOn the smaller cruiser-racers several smaller ones go very fast among racers and much bigger boats, among them an A13, a JPK 10.80, a JPJ 10.10 a Comet 38s and a M37.
Hi Paulo, welcome back. I hardly could trust my eyes to see your blog live again. Keep on going strong, I enjoy every single post! Knut
ReplyDeleteThanks fot the nice words :-)
ReplyDeleteAnother look at the race when the 2 big racing trimarans have already turned around the western point of Sicily and are now going upwind towards Pantelleria and Malta where the race finishes:
ReplyDeleteOn the Monohulls Rambler is leading but between the ones on the front of the race the great performance goes for Caro a 65ft race cruiser that is not far from Rambler, fighting against big racers and a 46ft boat that is among the fastest monohulls, a brand new Hugh Welbourn design (DSS creator), a Infiniti 46RS.
On the next group of boats, the ones that turned already around Stromboli, the spotlight goes for the performance of a Xp44, a A13 (that are fighting with a VOR 60) and to the amazing Artie, a local J122 that risks to win the race again in compensated. A bit behind a J133 followed closely by another XP 44, a J122, a J111, a Grand Soleil GS43, a JPK 10.80, a First 45, a Comet 38s and a Doufour 44p.
On the next group, approaching Stromboli, a M37, a racing M34, a Elan 450, an amazingly well sailed Solaris 42 (duo crew), a First 40 and a JP 10.10.
The last boat on the race is a Swan 46 and is among a group of boats that did not yet entered the Messina straight and are very far away from Stromboli, struggling to make way on the light wind. On that group we can find a Elan 431, a RM 12.60 but also surprisingly a First 40.7 a Dufour 40p and a Sunfast 3200.
The first monohull will probably be Rambler, the 88ft racer that is beating clearly Ciela Village, a Multi 50 Trimaran. Then the 2th monohull, Trifork, the first of the VOR 70.
ReplyDeleteThen, at some distance comes another group and in that group three boats are making a great race: Mascalzone Latino a Cookson 50 that is side by side with a theoretically faster RP60. The Infiniti 46 (Maverick) that is just ahead of a 82ft carbon cruiser racer and Caro, also a cruiser racer but with only 65ft.
To measure the performance of these boats it suffices to say that they leaved behind the 2th VOR70, the first IMOCA(Open 60) and way behind all VOR60.
On the West coast of Sicily comes a 3th group of boats with some featuring a huge performance, starting with the one that leads that group, a cruiser racer, a A13 (if you don't know what is a A13 look at the index, there is a post about the boat) that is fighting with hugely bigger boats. Its supere performance diminishes a bit the good performance of the other cruiser racer that is near by, a Mylius 49. But really the awesome performance comes from a J122, Artie, that comes some miles behind fighting with a Xp44 that is also making a great race and that is followed at some distance by another Xp44 that is just a bit ahead of a J133 and a J111.
At some distance comes a Grand Soleil GS50, a Swan 45, a Grand Soleil GS54, a First 45, a Grand Soleil GS43 and another J122.
And they are all going fast, faster than the 2th VOR 60. That VOR is certainly badly sailed but even so!!!!!
Then come the group with the fastest smaller boats (already in the west coast) leaded by a racing Archambault M34 and a JPK 10.80 cruiser racer. Very close a First 40, a Comet 38s a Xp44 and a JPK 10.10....and they are all faster than the 2th Class 40, that is not properly badly sailed since there are 5 racing. The bad performance of the class 40 comes as no big surprise. Definitively that type of hulls don't perform very well on the Med but even so a Comet 38s going faster is quite unexpected, after all the Class 40 is a racing boat and Vaquita (the class 40) has a good crew, having made quite an ARC race, some years back.