Trial And Error

There Is No Such Thing as a Dead Cert in Offshore Racing, as This Year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race Proved. Helen Fretter Reports.

- Helen Fretter

Nature lays on the symbolism thick at the Rolex Middle Sea. Where else do you race past fire and brimstone, the bubbling uncertainty of a live volcano? Stromboli is just one memorable mark of what is widely regarded to be the most spectacular of all offshore race courses – starting among the towering ramparts of Valetta, to the tactically tricky Straits of Messina, past smoking Mount Etna, the beautiful Sicilian coast, before heading back out to open water and Lampedusa.

The Mediterranean is at its most deceptive at this time of year – fleets often set out in balmy conditions, only to face pulverising winds and seas later in the 608-mile circular course. The 2016 race saw a genteel start forecast to make way for Sirocco head winds for many on their return leg to Malta.

Trying times

Heading into this year’s autumn classic, all eyes were on the highly anticipated duel between two MOD70s: Lloyd Thornburg’sall-conquering Phaedo 3 , racing in ‘conventional’ MOD70 mode, and Giovanni Soldini’s experimental Maserati, which set off for Malta with a modified, ‘semi-foiling’ arrangement. 

In the build-up to the Middle Sea Race, the Maserati team had the MOD70 foiling successfully (albeit only on port tack as the boat was trialling an asymmetric set up), and the event was intended to be her first competitive test in ‘flight’ mode. However, on her way to Valetta five days before the start, Maserati collided with something – the crew suspect a large fish rather than a rigid container – which ripped off the starboard rudder and much of the starboard steering gear.