The Rolex Middle Sea Race this year was more like a marathon offshore racing event. Line Honours winner Esimit Europa 2 took three-and-a-half days to complete the course but for over half the MSR fleet, it took close to double that.
On Thursday, organisers Royal Malta Yacht Club announced that South African entry Hi Fidelity had been confirmed as overall winners of the 33rd Rolex MSR.
Just completing the gruelling course is praiseworthy but in the early hours of yesterday several class winners were also decided, including the prestigious honour of first Maltese boat to cross the finish line at Marsamxett Harbour, in Valletta.
Josef Schultheis and Paolo Semeraro’s Xp44, XP-ACT, crossed the finish line Thursday evening to provisionally win Class 3.
The boat had three Maltese sailors on board, Timmy Camilleri, Zach Cassar Torregiani and Sebastian Ripard.
“That was a long race and we are very happy with our performance,” explained Ripard.
“The Xp44 is a great boat and, considering the light conditions that prevailed, we did very well to take the class.
“The last night at sea was a tough one. After we sailed around Lampedusa, a massive squall caught us by surprise, we had too much sail up and we just had to run ahead of it.
“The situation was pretty bad but it got worse when the force of the wind meant we couldn’t get the sails down as we wanted.
“Everyone on board was scrambling around on deck getting those sails down as best we could.”
While XP-ACT has three Maltese sailors, the first Malta yacht to cross the finish line was Artie RTFX.
Last year’s overall winner is also the provisional winner of Class 4.
Windless patches
“We did our best, it was a great race and everybody did a great job working really hard but we just kept on getting stuck in patches of no wind, which was very frustrating,” co-skipper Christian Ripard said.
“This is a difficult race but the first night makes or breaks and we worked very hard the first night and got it right. Artie did well... our boat went really well.
“This race took a whole day longer than last year and it was really tiring mentally. You were always looking for a way out... you could never relax.
“I would say luck was not on our side at Capo St Vito.
“We were just too late to get the wind at the corner and we probably lost 20 miles just because of that.
“The yachts slightly larger than ours just managed to ride the good weather. Had we succeeded in turning that corner with them, we would probably be singing by now.”
Artie RTFX was under considerable pressure to be the first Maltese boat home as Jonas Diamantino and Ramon Sant Hill’s ILC40, Comanche Raider 2 GasanMamo, pushed them all the way to the finish, as Ripard explains.
“Comanche caught up about 20 miles on us, I was anxious watching them close the gap but in a way that was fantastic.
“There were a lot of good people doing the race this year.
“All of the crew on Artie are amateurs but they are top class sailors... we have had more or less the same crew for the last three races,” he said.
“I am the old man on the boat but the others know what they are doing and they keep me young.
“Many of them are dinghy champions who have just got into keelboat racing... they are the future of Maltese sailing. The MSR is a major occasion in our country and an ideal showcase for our sport.”