Nailbiting finish

Rolex Giraglia Race leaders drift neck and neck into Genoa

The benign conditions for the opening race of the Giraglia Rolex Cup 2005 could not have stood in greater contrast to the 45 knot storm that battered the fleet in the Bay of St Tropez exactly a year ago. The first day was picture postcard perfect, particularly for the IMS-friendly Grand Soleil designs who dominated the leaderboards of both the big boat division, Group A, and the smaller boats of Group B.

In fact it was the winner of last year's big boat division, Frank Noel's Grand Soleil 42R Near Miss, who won the 29.5 mile race in an IMS-corrected time of 2hr 24 min 31 sec, 58 seconds in front of another Grand Soleil 42, Lorenzo Bressani's North Sails Sportswear. A further four minutes behind on handicap was Clive Llewellyn's Grand Soleil 50 Mad IV. The small boat division was also led by a Grand Soleil 40C, Ubaldo Sgherri's Mammy the Best IV.

As with last year it looked as though the Maxis would have to console themselves with line honours or Class 0 success, as the Grand Soleils operate so well under the rules of the IMS handicap system. That is certainly what Carlo Puri Negri was aiming for with his Farr 70 Atalanta II. "We are here to win Racing Class 0," he said. "This year we have finished third in everything we have done, so it is time for us to win something. At the moment we are very fast upwind but we still need to improve our downwind performance, certainly compared to a boat like Black Dragon."

Black Dragon is a Reichel/Pugh 77, originally designed purely for the downwind offshore classic, the Transpac Race from California across the Pacific to Hawaii. She was not designed with IMS in mind, but given the right circumstances she can still perform to handicap as her sistership Nokia Enigma proved by winning the long Giraglia Race to Genoa last year. Day 1 was not an auspicious start for Black Dragon, however, with a 24th place on corrected time.

Things got very much better for the lightweight 77-footer after that, though. On Day 2 Black Dragon showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the fleet, the triangular course playing perfectly to her reaching and running strengths. At times she was touching 12 knots of boatspeed in just 8 knots of wind. When the wind softened and changed direction soon after Black Dragon had finished, it looked as though she might even beat her diminutive Group A rivals in the Grand Soleils. But North Sails Sportswear sneaked home just 11 seconds ahead of the Maxi on corrected time, with Near Miss just 14 seconds behind the Maxi's time.

Topping the Group B leaderboard after two races was the Swiss team aboard Luigi Balestra's IMX 40 Maluba. French tactician Philippe Comte admitted to being quite surprised at their performance. "I think we have been lucky so far. We are amateur sailors but so far things are going well for us."

The third and final day of inshore racing at St Tropez was a strange one. After two days of glorious sunshine, the sailors awoke to be greeted by gusty winds and pouring rain. The race committee postponed the start until things settled down and St Tropez started to look like its usual sunny self again. By start time the wind had abated considerably, to around 10 or 11 knots. Black Dragon's boat captain James Carroll commented: "As we headed out to sea it got lighter and lighter for a while, but in the middle of the race it got back up to 16 knots and we were making 12 or 13 knots boatspeed. Then as we came back in towards the finish at St Tropez, the wind started dropping out again, which I think helped us out against the smaller boats."

It certainly did help. This time the dying breeze really hurt the smaller boats and Black Dragon did the double of taking line honours and handicap victory by almost six minutes from North Sails Sportswear. Perhaps the team could dream of emulating Nokia Enigma's handicap victory in the long race.

As for the smaller boats, Maluba consolidated her lead over the 86 boats of Group B in the best possible way, with a victory. With scores of 3,2,1 over the three days of inshore racing, Maluba would have been in a prime position to win the regatta overall, but Comte said the crew would be going back to their respective homes in Antibes and Switzerland. No long race to Genoa for them, but back to work. "It is painful leaving tonight, knowing that we are in the lead," Comte smiled philosophically.

That evening the sailors walked up the hill behind St Tropez for a Rolex party and prizegiving at The Citadel. Sunset was made all the more beautiful by some distant rain clouds, but half an hour later those same clouds were over the party and drenching the guests. The rain did little to dampen the spirits of the partygoers however. If anything, the rain made for an even more memorable evening. After all, what sort of sailor would you be if you couldn't cope with getting a little wet from time to time? When the rain finally disappeared, the fireworks were set off and brought the St Tropez phase of this regatta to a close.

The following day, St Tropez was back to her sunny best, as crowds gathered on the sea front to witness 189 yachts racing out of the bay and into the Mediterranean. Black Dragon did the best to justify her billing as line honours favourite by leading the fleet out of the bay just after midday. As for winning on corrected time, that was in the lap of the gods. Despite this being his first race as a professional navigator, Black Dragon's Simon Shaw was well aware of the vagaries of this race, particularly when drawing near to the Giraglia Rock off the northern tip of Corsica. The wind nearly always shuts down here, allowing the smaller boats to close up from behind. The race is quite capable of restarting from this point. "The wind tends to shut down at night," Shaw explained. "We will go through a shut down on the first night, just like everyone else, but our aim is to make it into Genoa before the second evening. If we can avoid the second shutdown and have the smaller boats behind us run out of wind, that would be very useful."

After a stunning performance over the past three days of inshore racing, Roberto Ferrero had every reason to be confident about success in the long race. His Grand Soleil 42R North Sails Sportswear was packed with Italian talent, including helmsman Lorenzo Bressani and tactician Matteo Ivaldi. "Actually we do not have such tightly defined roles," explained the owner. "We all help each other with every job, we work very much as a team."

The following morning revealed a surprise leader around the Giraglia Rock, when Pierluigi Loro Piana's Reichel/Pugh 85 My Song looked set for line honours. My Song is a heavier, more cruising-oriented yacht than some of the other lightweight racers such as Black Dragon. To be leading was a surprise in itself, but to hold a 45-minute lead over Black Dragon was exceptional. Pierluigi Loro Piana had been in this position twice before - leading at the Rock only to lose out on the final stretch to Genoa. Could this be third time lucky?

Unfortunately for My Song's owner it was not. With the wind blowing from the north, the final leg to Genoa was directly upwind, offering numerous tactical options. My Song, like most of the leading Maxis, went right towards the coast at Portofino. Simon Shaw's weather information suggested going left, and so Black Dragon tacked on to starboard at the Rock and soon found herself gaining on her rivals.

However the superior boatspeed of the larger Wally 95 Magic Carpet meant she was very difficult for Black Dragon to shake off. These two had been tied to each other all the way round the course, and there was little between them as they closed on the finish line in the dead of night. The battle for line honours was edge-of-the-seat stuff despite the lack of breeze. Magic Carpet was leading with just 300 metres to the finish line when the smaller and lighter Black Dragon picked up a gust and rolled her rival in the very last few metres of this 243-mile race from St Tropez.

The Reichel/Pugh 77 crossed the line barely a minute ahead of her larger rival, although her time of 36 hrs 12 min 8 sec was far outside the monohull course record set by 90-foot Maxi Alfa Romeo two years ago. The difference was that Neville Crichton's crew had strong winds to power them to their 22:13:48 record in 2003. The strongest wind that Black Dragon ever saw was 12 knots early in the race, hardly the stuff for breaking records.

Not that record breaking was on the mind of Black Dragon's navigator Simon Shaw. He was quite satisfied with the win. "It seemed we were tied to Magic Carpet all the way round the course. There was never much between us at any point. We swapped the lead many times but luckily we nicked it at the end when it matters most!"

Further back, North Sails Sportswear was making a bold move away from the fleet, breaking to the left while the majority opted for the Portofino side. It proved to be the right choice, as the Grand Soleil 42 came home to win the race under corrected time, by a margin of just 10 minutes from the Maxi edimetra, which had finished a few hours earlier in the night.

"There is never wind near Portofino in this type of situation," said Bressani, who has won this race twice before in the late 90s. "When all the bigger boats went the other way to Portofino we were very happy to do the opposite." Gilles Argelies' IMX 45 Imagine 2000 finished third overall on corrected time, around half an hour behind edimetra.

Of the 189 starters, 132 yachts completed the 243 miles from Genoa to St Tropez. The prizegiving took place on a warm and windless Saturday evening at the Yacht Club Italiano in Genoa. For her line honours victory, Black Dragon was awarded a Rolex Submariner in gold and steel. For victory under corrected time Roberto Ferrero received a platinum and steel Rolesium, a worthy reward for such an emphatic performance by North Sails Sportswear.

Now in its 53rd year, the Giraglia Rolex Cup is established as one of the classic regattas of the Mediterranean. The regatta, sponsored by Rolex for the past eight years, comprises three days' inshore racing in the Bay of St Tropez, and culminates in the 243-mile offshore race via the Giraglia Rock to the Italian port of Genoa.

Overall Results of 243-mile Giraglia Race (corrected time)

1 North Sails Sportswear - Lorenzo Bressani/ Roberto Ferrero (ITA) - Grand Soleil 42R0 - 31 hrs, 27 min, 48 sec (corrected time)
2 Edimetra VI - Ernesto Gismondi (ITA) - Wally 65 - 31:37:51
3 Imagine 2000 - Gilles Argelies (FRA) - IMX 45 - 32:05:12

Line Honours winner of Giraglia Race

Black Dragon - Performance Yachting (GBR) - Reichel/Pugh 77 - 36 hrs, 12 min, 08 sec

Inshore Racing at St Tropez - Overall Results

Class 0-1

1 North Sails Sportswear - Lorenzo Bressani/ Roberto Ferrero (ITA) - Grand Soleil 42R0 - 5 points
2 Near Miss - Frank Noel (SUI) - Grand Soleil 42R - 9 points
3 Atalanta II - Carlo Puri Negri (ITA) - Farr 70 Racer - 18 points

Class 2-5

1 Maluba - Luigi Balestra (SUI) - IMX 40 - 6 points
2 Despeinada - Italo Borrini (ITA) - Grand Soleil 40R - 13 points
3 Alpenergie-Maolca - Manfredi Vianini Tolomei (ITA) - X-40 - 15 points