Artie declared overall winner

Putting an end to the drought of Maltese winners, the J/122 Artie, co-skippered by Lee Satariano and Christian Ripard, was named the overall winner of the 2011 Rolex Middle Sea Race yesterday.

Artie completed the 606-nautical mile course in an elapsed time of 4 days, 4 hours, 22 minutes, 54 seconds. The last time a local boat won this ocean classic was in 2002 when the 35-footer Market Wizard took top honours.

This year’s race once again proved it could be a small boat affair with the top three boats – Artie, AOC Rockall (the German Corby 36), and Otra Vez (another Maltese J/122) – all under 40 feet.

Since 2002, half of the overall winners have been drawn from the most competitive maxi and mini-maxis around including Rambler, Morning Glory, Nokia, Alegre, and Atalanta II, all ranging in size from 65 to 90 feet in length and suggesting a big boat bias.

Artie has redressed the balance a little.

After finishing second overall in 2006 and last year, owner Lee Satariano was clearly pleased with his first overall win.

“It’s a moment to enjoy, a dream come true,” Satariano said. “Since 2002 the fleet has grown bigger, the competition is tremendous.

“The Rolex Middle Sea Race is a beautiful track. The race is one you can never forget – every year something challenges you to go back out and enjoy the race.”

Satariano was quick to credit Ripard and the rest of his crew. “They have been preparing the boat the whole year and have been dedicated to the local races,” he said.

“The preparation for this race was even more and more intense – a lot of effort went into optimising the boat and sails. During the race, the crew worked round the clock, sometimes there were 5-7 sail changes in 10 minutes; they worked fast, and in any conditions. It was very nice for them to do so well in such a race.”

As to what made this year’s race unique, aside from the obvious winning, he added: “Every corner had something we weren’t expecting – you were expecting one thing and then obviously facing different winds, rain, different directions, but it was totally exciting.”

The only mishap the crew of Artie experienced was during the first night, off the southeast coast of Sicily, when they realised there was a problem in accessing the race tracker, a glitch they never resolved.

Ripard said: “Psychologically it let us get on with the job and I think it helped. We could (visually) see our closest rivals, so we had motivation to keep the boat moving.”

Artie’s crew followed the pre-race forecast, but the boats that were inshore of them sailed through and Artie ended up towards the back of the fleet. The crew knew they were doing badly when they found themselves with boats they knew they should be in front of.

“From there we worked even harder to regain that loss on the first night,” Satariano said.

Beside Ripard and Satariano, Artie’s eight-man crew includes three 20-year olds. “It proves the Maltese sailors may not be ‘rock star’ professionals, but they can deliver and muck in with the best,” Ripard said. “This race wasn’t a fluke – last year we pressed hard and we went back and proved the boys could do it.”

Besides a race with the J/133 Jaru, both boat-for-boat and on corrected time, Artie was also racing the clock against Chris Opielok’s Corby 36, AOC Rockall (GER), which according to the race tracking system was leading overall for a good part of the race.

Tight duel

Once Artie finished, AOC Rockall had a two-hour window to cross the line. While it may have been achievable with the right conditions, this year the weather gods were not cooperating with the race newcomer. The Corby 36 crossed just before 18.00 local time, 29 minutes too late to unseat Artie from the winner’s perch.

Opielok has successfully campaigned AOC Rockall for the past two years, and has just recently sold the boat, but had committed to competing in the Rolex Middle Sea Race as a final race onboard.

Still, the overall result seems to have hardly diminished the German sailor’s enthusiasm for the race, in which they placed second overall on corrected time and second in Class 4.

“It was a beautiful, very lovely race,” Opielok said. “We had up to 20 knots of breeze, we had no wind, we had a bit of current, and an unpredictable weather forecast.

“For all of us it was our first race and we can claim it as the best offshore race ever – we just loved it here.”

Opielok reported no problems onboard and foresaw a return to Malta. “The boat was like a snake through oil,” he said. “I love this boat and really regret selling it, but I need a bit of time for my family and business. But, I promise, I’ll be back!”

As of 16.00 yesterday, some dozen boats were still racing, most of them just approaching the islands of Gozo and Comino, a light northerly wind pushing them towards the finish.

The final boats in the fleet are expected in by this evening.