Grand Harbour Marina Blog

ICAP Leopard lead the fleet along the course past palermo and then turned a good head of speed – 20knts – to Pantelleria.
“After Stromboli was tough,” commented Slade upon his return. “We had 5 or 6 hours of real weather front. We’re a big strong boat and can cope with it. In fact we were hoping to get more of the same at the bottom of the course.” This hope never fully materialised, as he went on to explain. “It took 12 hours to get across to the Egadi Islands and it was only then on the way down to Pantelleria that we started putting on some real boat speed. It was bump, bang, everyone hold on. We would have liked it to carry on down to Lampedusa, but it just didn’t happen. There was no wind there of any consequence.” At this point Leopard was only 75-minutes off Rambler’s blistering pace. Munching the miles to Comino was something this boat was born to do. But she needs wind. Slade had said before the start that 20 knots of wind and flat water would be ideal. What he got for the final long leg was sloppy water and soft winds bouncing between 12 and 18 knots.
She came in 30 minutes outside the course record!
Meanwhile the fleet had lost around 15 of its entrants. Leopard’s arrival was followed by that of Beau Geste.
With two boats tied up in the harbour we had a yacht race on. When Beau Gestecrossed the line at 15.28 she moved into pole position on handicap. Her moment in the spotlight was short lived. Alegre (GBR) finished at 18.33 and moved back into a lead that she has held since Stromboli. Neither Rán (GBR) nor Luna Rossa (ITA) were in a position to dislodge her when they finished. Intermatica VO70 (ITA) won the battle of the two Volvo boats, beating Ericsson (SWE) on handicap although not on the water.
At this time the bulk of the fleet is still racing. 23 yachts have now retired citing various reasons, mostly sail and equipment damage resulting from the vicious squalls that persisted until midday on the 19th. The fleet is currently strung out down past Pantelleria and Lampedusa.
The two remaining double-handers are near Favignana on the northwestern point of Sicily. The winds have lightened up considerably.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 14:13 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.