Action at the 2016 Rolex Middle Sea Race got underway with a 21-mile coastal race on Wednesday.

Organised by the Royal Malta Yacht Club (RMYC) as a warm-up opportunity to put in some practice ahead of the main event which starts tomorrow, some 33 teams entered.

Principal race officer Peter Dimech set a course offering various sailing angles and was sailed in decent breeze building from eight to 15 knots.

Starting from Marsamxett Harbour, the first leg was downwind under spinnaker to the Valletta Fairway buoy, followed by a reach to the Munxar Cardinal buoy and a beat to Bengħisa Cardinal buoy off the south east corner of Malta. The fleet then returned on a reciprocal course back to Marsamxett.

The First 45 Elusive 2 sailed by the Podesta family came out on top as overall winners.

The westerly breeze coming off Malta meant there were plenty of puffs and shifts all along the east and south east coast of the island for crews to take advantage of.

Going offshore in search of stable breeze or looking for lifting pressure inshore proved the main tactical puzzle. With opportunities to sail different angles and play shifts caused by the land effects during the three to four hours of racing, the coastal race was a great rehearsal for the 608-mile offshore classic.

Elusive 2, jointly skippered by siblings Aaron, Christoph and Maya Podesta completed the course in the quickest elapsed time as well as the best corrected time under IRC.

Yves Grosjean’s French J/133 Jivaro was second overall ahead of  Nils Lindemann’s X-P 44 Xpedite.

Other class winners were Vasily Shumarin’s Belka 2 from Russia, Hartl & Wolf’s double-handed Austrian entry 2Hard and Vadim Sklyarov’s Ukranian Du4.