Nimble Malta yachtsmen come back from behind

Despite an inauspicious start to the Rolex Middle Sea Race that found the Maltese owner and co-skipper sick and voiceless, while navigation instruments were in error, the crew of Artie pressed on to become the first Maltese boat to win the regatta in a decade.

Lee Satariano said the crew of his J/122 had to put up with a skipper who could not communicate and instruments that would not cooperate. But Artie’s luck changed in time, although much of its victory boils down to “tactics and quick thinking”.

For him, Artie’s triumph was a result of the hard work the team put in – from co-skipper and helmsman Christian Ripard to Matthew Gussman, Isaac Borg, John Cachia, Kurt Casapina, Jan Rossi and Peter Valentino.

“This group of men go beyond the definition of crew – you are a second family, and thank you,” Mr Satariano said at the prize-giving ceremony at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on Saturday, where he and Mr Ripard were presented the RMSR trophy and a Rolex Yacht-Master timepiece.

They were also awarded the Transport Malta trophy for being the first boat with a Maltese skipper and majority of Maltese crew to finish the race.

A total of 70 yachts started the 32nd RMSR on October 22; 65 boats finished and four retired. The course record, set in 2007 by the 90-foot Rambler, stands at 47 hours, 55 minutes and three seconds. Artie completed the 606-nautical-mile course in an elapsed time of four days, four hours, 22 minutes and 54 seconds.

This year’s race proved it could be a “small-boat affair”, with the top three all under 40 feet. Since 2002, half of the overall winners have been drawn from the most competitive maxi and mini-maxis around, all ranging between 65 and 90 feet in length.

After finishing second overall in 2006 and 2010, Mr Satariano said it was “a dream come true. Since 2002, the fleet has grown and the competition is tremendous,” he said. “Every year, something challenges you to go back out and enjoy the race.”

The crew had been preparing the boat for the whole year and was dedicated to the local races. During the RMSR, they worked round the clock, fast and in any conditions, with, at times, five to seven sail changes in 10 minutes, Mr Satariano said.

As for what made this year’s race unique, aside from the victory, he said “every corner had something we weren’t expecting”. It all started from 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.

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

It was not plain sailing all along and they knew they were doing badly when they found themselves with boats they knew they should have been ahead of. From there, they worked even harder to regain the loss on the first night and spent the rest of the race in “catch-up mode”, which fuelled them not to slip up.

“It was tough mentally. There were constant decisions, and you had to make the right ones. We were close to 30 yachts, racing among a big fleet, so it was a very tactical race… We pushed the boat as hard as she could go.”

The local victory proves “the Maltese sailors may not be ‘rock star’ professionals but they can deliver and muck in with the best. This race wasn’t a fluke – last year, we pressed hard and we went back and proved the boys could do it”.

Once Artie finished the race, the German Corby 36, AOC Rockall, which, according to the race-tracking system, was leading overall for a good part of the race, 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 and it crossed 29 minutes too late to unseat Artie from the winner’s throne.