Alegre prevails in titanic struggle for Line Honours

What a day - whether one quite like this has been witnessed before in the Rolex Middle Sea Race is a matter for the archivists. Starting with the resolution of the titanic struggle for Line Honours, the day wrapped up with a series of intriguing stories from the course ranging from alarming encounters with shipping, to an even more worrying encounter with a ferocious squall that has seen a number of yachts pull out with various, but serious rig, mast and sail problems.

On the positive side, Andy Soriano's 68-foot Alegre (GBR) cruised over the line at 0720 yesterday morning to secure the prize for being first home. The Royal Malta Yacht Club greeted the arrival with its ritual cacophony of hooters, clapping and cries of congratulation.

Every yacht from however far a field is welcomed home as if a long lost family member. Rosebud/Team DYT (USA), which crossed the line third almost eight hours later, was the recipient of rapturous, if sympathetic applause.

Roger Sturgeon's crew lost out in the contest to break the tape on Tuesday night when they became trapped in a windless hole just off the bay of Castellammare. Jim Swartz's STP65 Moneypenny (USA) was further offshore and according to Francesco de Angelis, one of the all-star afterguard, this was a part deliberate, part accidental ploy after the turn at Stromboli.

"The first time we went north was planned, the second was when we encountered a couple of unexpected holes," De Angelis said.

"We worked well through this period because we kept pressure all the way up to Trapani, while most of the other boats inside lost it. It was one of those situations when we felt you could not play in the middle." The middle is where Rosebud/Team DYT had placed herself.

Making tactical calls in offshore yacht racing requires tremendous nerve. Get it wrong and you are down the drain. Get it right and the roses come into bloom.

De Angelis thought Alegre took the biggest gamble in the game of leaderboard poker by heading inshore at Castellammare.

Soriano described what led to the decision, "from Stromboli all the way to Trapani was very difficult. It was a matter of holding our nerve and holding to the plan.

"We got into a duel with Moneypenny and let Rosebud get by on the outside, which is where we wanted to be because it made sense in the conditions. Will (Best, the navigator) and I talked about it after Stromboli and agreed that this time we would stick with our plan of coming into the north coast of Sicily."

Best was on his first Rolex Middle Sea Race and was clearly delighted to have won Line Honours, and modestly put it down to some lucky breaks. De Angelis was more sanguine, "they hit the band of land-breeze a couple of minutes before us and that was the race, right there."

When Moneypenny and Alegre converged, Soriano's boat had the edge by 2-300 metres and was to windward, effectively holding all the cards. The race was by no means over with 250 nm left to go and plenty of decisions still to be made.

While the winds were 12-15 knots, the seas were typical for the region. Short, sharp and steep. "We had a day and a half of some pretty hard slogging, not into that much wind but into uncomfortable seas," explained Soriano, who was understandably thrilled to be heading home with Alegre's maiden offshore Line Honours and a Rolex Chronometer.

"We're thrilled, absolutely thrilled. It's a culmination of a lot of hard work. It's a tribute to my son, who put the crew together."

So what about the rest of the day? Well, where to start. Most of the fleet started the previous night spread between Favignana and Pantelleria, having waited all day for the breeze filling in from the south to reach them. Some, like Georges Bonello DuPuis on Escape (MLT) were resigned to another night sat bobbing; others, like Ivan Mallia and Windriven (MLT) were just entering the winds and were enjoying heading south at a steady rate even if it was on the wind.

Just after the frontrunners had tied up at Grand Harbour Marina and were sinking a well-earned beer, the news from the racecourse started to take a turn for the worse. The rotten hands dealt to the fleet north of Sicily, when they had no wind, were being dealt again. This time, though, the jokers in the pack included the sea state and a sudden, exceptionally violent, squall as a front generated by a tight low over Sardinia passed over Pantelleria at lunch-time.

First boat on the radio to Race HQ was the short-handed Oxygene (ITA), whose crew could not start her engine to charge her batteries and consequently was sailing without instruments to Pantelleria to assess their options. At 0900 it was the turn of Sciara (ITA), reporting her retirement due a broken mast.

Four hours later and the weather forecasts were predicting a fierce ball of wind in excess of 40 knots due to pass through the area of the course around Pantelleria. And, at 1400, Sandro Musu the skipper of Aziza (MLT) duly confirmed its arrival, advising, "we were 13 miles south of Pantelleria when we were caught in a massive squall that came from nowhere. Everyone is OK and we'll get to port to assess the damage, but we are without our mainsail so we are going to retire."

These conditions were in contrast to the previous 48 hours of calm, but are part of what makes the Rolex Middle Sea Race so challenging.

Shortly after Aziza's retirement, Richard Falk, skipper of Gyrate (GBR), confirmed the intensity of the thunderstorm that hit the fleet, when announcing their retirement. Windriven has sought shelter at Pantelleria to assess the extent of the damage caused by the storm. Italian yacht Storm has also retired.

The rain on the course yesterday evening reached Malta, dampening the spirits after the elation of the morning. Whether anyone can prise overall victory from Alegre, which currently holds pole position on corrected time, remains to be seen.

Seventy-seven yachts started the race. Three had finished until 1800 yesterday and nine yachts retired.