Regatta News

Light winds in The ROLEX MIDDLE SEA RACE

AC Cup Team: Training and Testing out of The Islander’s Home Port of Palma

Club Swan 80 Debut

Makers of mind-blowing Documentary Free Solo and Skydance Sports Partner to create all-access Documentary on the Americas Cup.

Upcoming RORC Events

New Owners for J Class Yachts Ranger, Svea and Rainbow further consolidate the Iconic J Class Fleet.

Start Valleta Rolex Arrigo

Rolex Arrigo Leopard wins line honors Rolex Arrigo

Light winds in The ROLEX MIDDLE SEA RACE AC Cup Team Training and Testing out of The Islander’s Home Port of Palma

The 43rd edition of the Mediterranean’s most demanding and renowned 600 mile offshore race, The Middle Sea Race, will be remembered for light winds. Only those determined enough made the finish line, but the majority of the fleet did not finish. The conditions couldn’t have been more different than last year’s race.

The principal success stories of the 2022 Rolex Middle Sea Race recognised at the prize giving included: • Teasing Machine – overall winner under IRC and recipient of the Rolex Middle Sea Race Trophy • Mana – multihull line honours winner and recipient of the Captain Morgan Trophy for victory under MOCRA • Leopard 3 – monohull line honours winner and recipient of the RLR Trophy Wild Joe – ORC

Category winner and recipient of the Boccale del Mediterraneo Trophy. The British America’s Cup team, INEOS Britannia, launched their first test boat for the 37th America’s Cup codenamed T6, designed and built-in collaboration with Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science, a division of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team. The 40-foot test boat will play a vital role in the team’s programme through to the next America’s Cup, to be raced in Barcelona in the summer 2024. T6’s work will commence with an extensive testing period, primarily aimed at validating the team’s design tools and testing key componentry ahead of the design deadline to start the build of the team’s race boat.

Club Swan 80 Debut

New Club Swan 80 My Song blows away the fierce competition at the Rolex Maxi Yacht cup as well as the consecutive Swan Cup. Being a brand-new yacht with a newbie crew they beat the odds and dominated some of the toughest big boat competition in the world! Swan is hoping to see this new CS80 taking off as a one design class. With My Song’s impressive debut in mind, it can be expected to see the CS80 fleet grow fast. But even on handicap she was competitive despite her canting keel and rotating canard.

My Song’s owner, the hugely experienced maxi sailor and industrialist Pier Luigi Loro Piana, was thrilled. “This boat has been a labour of love played out over three years. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t intervened in the project directly. Just to step aboard this beautiful yacht now is a delight, but to make two podium finishes in our first regattas shows there is exceptional potential here.”

Many Islander readers will remember how the previous “My Song”, the 40m Baltic, was lost after falling off a cargo ship in May 2019. We are pleased to read this quote, filled with excitement, from an owner who puts his heart and soul into yachting. These people are the pillars of our industry.

©Carlo Borlenghi

Makers of mind-blowing Documentary Free Solo and Skydance Sports Partner to create all-access Documentary on the America’s Cup

If you haven’t watched the climbing documentary Free Solo yet, you’re missing out. The great -and more relevant- news for The Islander readers is that the same people: Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Evan Hayes, will now create an all-access docu on the America’s Cup. (Think of it as the equivalent of the Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to survive”). For the first time ever, all the teams competing in the iconic sailing event will allow never-before-seen access into their preparations and execution of the race, and the documentary series will showcase the people and the drama – on and off the water – throughout the competition. The 37th America’s Cup will take place in September and October of 2024 in Barcelona where the event’s defending champions, Emirates Team New Zealand, which has won four Cups since 1995, will be challenged by teams including: United States, American Magic; Great Britain, INEOS Britannia; Italy, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli; and Switzerland, Alinghi Red Bull Racing Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin

Evan Hayes

Upcoming RORC events

RORC Transatlantic Race DATE: Sunday 8th January 2023 COURSE: Lanzarote - Grenada DISTANCE (nm): 2995

The ninth edition of the RORC Transatlantic Race takes the competitors through the islands of the Canaries, with their reputation for large acceleration zones and big waves, before heading out across the Atlantic Ocean to a finish off Quarantine Point on the east coast of Grenada

RORC Caribbean 600 DATE: Monday 20th February 2023 COURSE: Antigua – Antigua DISTANCE (nm): 600

The RORC Caribbean 600 has firmly established itself as a must-do modern classic for boats based on both sides of the Atlantic attracting many of the best racing yachts and crews from all over the world.

New Owners for J Class Yachts Ranger, Svea and Rainbow further consolidate the Iconic J Class Fleet

Photography by Rod Harris

The 2022 season has seen the J Class gather considerable momentum. After five years marked by limited and sporadic racing at mixed fleet regattas, this season followed a consolidated, popular programme of class racing at three great events in the Caribbean and Europe. In many senses this season has been the perfect lead up to 2024 when a very strong fleet of J Class yachts look set to muster in Barcelona to take centre stage at J Class World Championship during the 37thAmerica’s Cup period.

New owners breathed new life into two J Class campaigns and were rewarded with regatta wins on their respective debuts. As class racing returned to the Saint Barth’s Bucket in March where three boats enjoyed classic Caribbean trade winds conditions, Ranger, took the top award ahead of Hanuman and Velsheda.

For the new, younger generation owner of Ranger, for whom their first ever racing sailboat is the 2003 built J Class, a debut win might have been unexpected. It was, however, a well-earned result for a team which is full of talent, with offshore and ocean racing experience fired by great enthusiasm with America's Cup winners Ed Baird on the helm and John Kostecki as tactician.

The theme of debutant winners continued in June at the Superyacht Cup Palma where the J Class returned in numbers for the first time since 2014. During last winter a trio of well-known Swedish entrepreneurs - who are all accomplished and passionate sailors - acquired the Swedish designed Svea from the USA, looking to enjoy racing with the class under the Swedish flag for the first time. In mainly light winds on the Bay of Palma, all the competing J Class teams Svea, Topaz, Ranger and Velsheda - won races, but the Swedish flagged crew prevailed. J Class Secretary Stuart Childerley comments "We are pleased to know Rainbow is starting an extensive refit in Palma, likely ready to race in late summer 2023, while Svea is planning to continue cruising and racing in 2023. Lionheart and Velsheda have recently commenced deck replacement projects and hope to sail in June 2023. Hanuman is expected to continue cruising on the NE coast of the USA. Endeavour, based in Palma, is sailed regularly, Shamrock continues her refurbishment programme in the UK and owner Hugh Morrison is looking forward to racing her in 2024."

Rainbow has been bought by passionate New Zealand racer Neville Crichton, and boat captain Matthew Sweetman reports, "We aim to have the boat out of the water at the end of November and do a full refit to bring her up to 2023 J Class racing standards. That will involve new teak decks, new paint, some work on the hydraulics. We aim to be on the water next year and we will see how we go before brining some new sails online. We want to do some training with some of the other boats before we go racing."

Sweetman expects Rainbow to be back in the water in July next year and reports that Erle Williams, who has a strong J Class track record previously on the helm of Ranger, will play a key role. "We are looking forwards to getting the boat back racing, it is what they were designed to do. Everyone tells us Rainbow is a quick boat, but we will see. She has not really raced since Porto Cervo 2014 and we are eight, soon to be nine years down the line. Things have changed dramatically with the class since then, so we will see how we go when we are back in the water next year to see what else we need to do. We have a decent understanding of the class. Everyone is doing the same to make the boats faster and we need to see. With the America's Cup in Barcelona and Neville Crichton being a proud New Zealander, he wants to be there in a good position to compete at the front end of the fleet and Neville wants to fly the New Zealand flag."

The J Class programme for 2023 looks set to focus on the early and late September Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, and the Ibiza JoySail Regatta of which The Islander Magazine is the proud media partner!