Giraglia Rolex Cup

Small Boats take the glory on corrected time.

For the second year running, the multi-million dollar Maxi yachts have been thwarted in their attempt to win the Giraglia Race. This year it was the turn of the 40-footers to grab the top placings in the 243-mile offshore challenge that brings the Giraglia Rolex Cup to a close.

When the wind disappeared from the Mediterranean as the big boats pulled into Genoa on Friday afternoon, it seemed the Maxi yachts would dominate the rankings, while the rest of the fleet floundered on a glassy sea. But while the wind was nowhere to be seen from the Italian coastline, further out to sea the smaller yachts were storming down in their own 25 knot breeze. Querida, a custom-built Vismara 40, found wind nearly all the way from the start in Saint-Tropez to the Giraglia Rock off the coast of Corsica. And when some of the bigger boats got stuck in a windless zone within sight of the finish at Genoa, Querida and a group of IMX-40s stormed down behind them.

By Saturday morning it became apparent to the organisers at the Yacht Club Italiano that no one was going to get close to the corrected times of Querida and Imagine, an IMX-40 that also enjoyed conditions of almost uninterrupted wind. In the end Gianluigi Serena and his crew on Querida beat Gilles Argellies and the Imagine team by little more than two minutes over a course that had taken them 36 hours.

Almost an hour behind these two was a group of three more IMX-40s, of which the first was Fare Well, owned by Roger Pierrejean. Fare Well has been by far and away the most consistent boat this week. With a third place in the Giraglia race to add to her 3,5,8 score in the inshore races off Saint-Tropez, the Fare Well crew proved easy winners of the overall trophy. Pierrejean will be one of several skippers to receive a Rolex timepiece - in his case an exclusive Yacht-Master Rolesium - at the prize giving at the lavish Yacht Club Italiano on Saturday evening.

As for the Querida crew, they were delighted to have won the prestigious Giraglia Race, now in its 49th year. Mast-man Fabrizio Toselli had never competed in the race before, but he was proud to have won at his first attempt. "This is the best race in the Mediterranean, and the most historic," he said, adding, "Also, because I am from Genoa it is particularly important for me to have won this race."

Other competitors were conquered by the fickle conditions. Fewer than half of the 122 entrants completed the race, with many sailors frustrated by the lack of wind. Most remarkably, the American Maxi Sagamore, which had held the lead for some periods of the race and was in a solid third position with just 30 miles to go, decided to retire when she was only 11 miles from the finish line. TV tycoon Jim Dolan had a plane to catch so was forced to switch on the engine when he was frustratingly close to the finish.

A group of Maxi yachts hung on until the bitter end, but one by one they sailed into the hole just miles from the finish. When the wind filled in again, all four Maxis - Solleone, Virtuelle, Magic Carpet and Rrose Selavy - moved in unison and crossed the line within a minute of each other.

Once again, it was the 1975-vintage Grampus that stole class honours in the big boats. The owner from Genoa, Carlo Puri Negri, admitted he had been blessed with a favourable IMS rating in a 60-foot boat that cost a fraction of the Maxi yachts he had so soundly beaten on corrected time. Whether through embarassment at his recent successes or simply a desire to go faster in a newer boat, the man who is part of the Pirelli dynasty has decided to order a new Maxi for himself. He joked: "I will be spending more money and winning fewer trophies, but it is very Genovese to want to suffer a little when things are going well."

Read about Nautor Challenge's first competitive outing on page two.