Rolex Middle Sea Race | Wind and heavy rain greet boats off Sicily

The 31^st edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race sailed into wind and heavy rain last night, as the boats reached Eastern Sicily. An impressive fleet of 76 yachts waqs off yesterday under a southeasterly breeze.  

The lone multihull, SIG45, was off first at the stroke of 11.00am, followed in ten-minute intervals with Classes Four through One, smallest to biggest boats. With twenty boats in each of the middle starts, there was the inevitable shouting and close maneuvers, and despite that only three boats were over early and had to restart.

The smallest boat in the fleet is the 9.9 metre, BOV Plain Sailing (MLT), one of three racing in the Double-Handed division. Owner Anthony Camilleri is racing his tenth race, and his crew Gilbert Azzopardi in his first. The Maltese skipper won the Double Handed division in 2008 on board Bavaria Flyer Mlt52, which had the ‘luxury’ of electric winches and furling system.

The big boats were the last to leave Grand Harbour, with the Baltic 77 Black Pearl (GBR) on the line at the gun, Esimit Europa 2 (SLO) and ICAP Leopard (GBR) were to leeward, and Alegre (GBR) closest to the Valletta shoreline.

There’s new weather due in on Monday, southwest to start with and then very quickly northwesterly. There’s a strong mistral with 20-25 knots, developing in the Gulf of Lyon and that will roll down through Sicily by Monday afternoon and that will blow us home fairly quickly, so the second half will just be a drag race back.

The southeast tip of Sicily, approximately 50 miles from Valletta, is the first key point of the race. Initially a sea breeze can develop, enticing the yachts to get closer and closer to the coast of Sicily. However, further up the coast, the weather in this area is heavily influenced by Mount Etna, which casts a wind shadow offshore. In this sense, the sea breeze can act as a honey-trap; enticing the boats in but then shutting down as the wind shadow takes over, leaving boats caught in the trap.