If you have any interest in peering at a yacht tracker incessantly, you would have surely been following the progress of the J/122 Artie in the Rolex Middle Sea Race on Tuesday night.

Since the race start five days ago, the Maltese boat had been seemingly guided by keen local knowledge, as well as sharp sailing talent.

Co-skippers Lee Satariano and Christian Ripard worked their way around numerous wind holes, keeping the boat moving in light air, as well as hunkered down on the rail, full-metal jacket sailing down the proverbial bomb alley along the west coast of Sicily, and around Pantelleria, and Lampedusa.

After the R/P 100 Esimit Europa 2 claimed line honours on Monday, the Slovenian maxi held the corrected lead, but only until the TP52 Lucky (USA) completed a fantastic lap around Sicily to take the overall handicap lead.

Then it was down to Artie, and for a while, fellow Maltese boat Jaru, a J/133, to see if they could beat the clock. Artie had to finish at 08.18 yesterday morning, and at the various checkpoints of the course that meant averaging around mid-9 knots. They had shown flashes of this speed, so it was all possible.

Artie had a fast passage overnight hitting boat speeds in the high teens, from Lampedusa through the South Comino Channel.

Between Gozo and Comino the breeze held out, but around 08.00, as Artie sailed into Marsamxett Harbour, the breeze dropped away along with any chance of making the cut-off. Crossing the line at 08:44, Artie missed the overall win by a mere 26 minutes.

Owner and co-skipper Satariano could be expected to be disappointed, though he said: “Last night we had a good hour where the boat was just surfing down the waves. I really enjoyed that moment.

“There was really nothing I would change, we raced the boat to full optimisation, but we have only had this boat for a short time and we are very happy with our achievement.

“The entries for the Rolex Middle Sea Race have been increasing every year and the competition is reaching a very high level. Maltese boats have shown well in recent races, we are up there; we can compete with the international competition.”

Artie co-skipper Ripard also enthused about the blast home on the last night. “The last night was just wonderful sailing and the crew had become fully in tune with each other,” Ripard said.

So with that finish missed, American Bryon Ehrhart’s boat Lucky remained as the provisional leader overall on corrected time in IRC.

Ehrhart was at the Royal Malta Yacht Club with his crew yesterday and spoke about the race and Lucky’s provisional lead. “It’s beyond my expectations,” Ehrhart said. “We came wanting to do a very interesting race, and we had that, and a good performance to match.

“The Middle Sea Race has a great reputation, which is why we came all the way down here. We thought it would be an interesting race, it turned out to be much more interesting.”

Classic race

Ehrhart, an active member of both the New York Yacht Club and Chicago Yacht Club, added: “To come and do well against the European fleets, and we’ve raced against them now, they are tough. We’ve raced elsewhere around the world and these guys are very, very challenging to sail against.

“All the time you have to be on your game to come here. I’d encourage everyone to come here and challenge.

“It’s unbelievable when you see the true, spewing volcano of Stromboli, it’s phenomenal. The Rolex Middle Sea Race is a classic, and in my mind it will certainly remain a classic.”

First Maltese boat home was Andrew Calascione’s J/133 Jaru, after three days, 20 hours, 2 minutes.

Retired boats yesterday included Libera, Legally Brunette, Allegra Garmin and Aziza.

At the time of writing, two Maltese entries, Otra Vez and BOV Plain Sailing, were still racing.