The 36th Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup opened in Porto Cervo under light easterly breeze on Monday and closed on Saturday having swung through a full range of Mediterranean conditions, calm mornings, a building Mistral, and a gentle northeasterly for the decider. Six champions were crowned, and New Zealand’s Dean Barker delivered the standout Kiwi result of the week, calling tactics aboard James Neville’s Botin 65 Artemis Bleu.
Racing began on Monday 7 September in 7 to 11 knots of easterly breeze, with all classes sailing a coastal course through the La Maddalena archipelago except Maxi Grand Prix, which contested two windward-leeward races off Porto Cervo. Alessandro Del Bono’s J/V 82 Capricorno took the early Maxi 1 lead, while Peter Dubens’ newly launched J/V 76 Northstar III opened her Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup debut with two straight wins in the Grand Prix fleet. Artemis Bleu, with Dean Barker calling tactics, won the opening Maxi 3 race, laying the foundations for a class victory that would take until Saturday to actually secure. Riccardo De Michele’s Vallicelli 78 H2O took Maxi 5, and Marcos Sirota’s Irens 63 trimaran Sophia won the opening Multihull race on her event debut.
A light Mistral of up to 15 knots on Tuesday brought all six classes converging through the La Maddalena channel together. Joost Schuijff’s Farr 100 Leopard 3 beat Karel Komarek’s WallyCento V by 46 seconds on corrected time to win the Maxi 1 race, Northstar III made it three wins from three in Grand Prix, and Luciano Gandini’s Mylius 80 FD Twin Soul B‘s win in Maxi 3 moved her into the class lead ahead of Artemis Bleu. With light winds forecast for Wednesday, the race committee brought the scheduled Thursday rest day forward, preserving Thursday, when better racing conditions were forecast.
Racing resumed on Thursday 10 September in a building Mistral of 16 to 22 knots, gusting 25. Maxi 1 sailed two windward-leewards, split between V and Leopard 3, while Northstar III made it four consecutive wins in Grand Prix, beating Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s wallyrocket71 Django 7X by 51 seconds. Twin Soul B, the Maxi 3 leader after Tuesday, retired with rudder failure as Artemis Bleu won the race and moved back into the championship lead. H2O extended its Maxi 5 winning streak to three, and Irvine Laidlaw’s VPLP Custom 80 Highland Fling XVIII won for a second consecutive day in the Multihull class.
Friday brought the strongest breeze of the regatta, 18 to 23 knots gusting to 28. Leopard 3 won both Maxi 1 windward-leewards to take the series lead. In Maxi Grand Prix, Peter Harrison’s Maxi 72 Jolt interrupted Northstar III‘s run with two wins of her own, but Peter Dubens’ Northstar III‘s fifth and fourth place finishes were enough, on top of the cushion built by four earlier wins, to make the Rolex IMA Maxi Grand Prix World Championship mathematically secure with one race still to sail. Artemis Bleu took a second consecutive win in Maxi 3, and Riccardo Eugen Genghini’s Swan 651 Lunz am Meer broke H2O‘s Maxi 5 streak, beating the class leader by 23 seconds. Highland Fling XVIII made it three straight wins in the Multihull class.
Saturday’s final day brought a return to gentle conditions, a 10-knot breeze rotating from north to northeast, for a closing coastal race across all six classes, including both World Championship divisions. Leopard 3 won again to complete four consecutive victories and take the Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship on 13 points, with Karel Komarek’s V second on 20 and defending champion David Leuschen and Chris Flowers’ WallyCento Galateia, New Zealanders Murray Jones and Kelvin Harrap in the afterguard, third on 22, two places short of a successful title defence. Northstar III closed out her title-winning week with a further win, while Hamish Pepper aboard George and Christina Sakellaris’ J/V 72 Proteus finished level with Jolt on 28 points but lost the final Grand Prix podium place on countback, and Brad Butterworth aboard Sir Peter Ogden’s J/V 77 Jethou finished last in the seven-boat class.
Artemis Bleu closed out Maxi 3 with a third consecutive win, beating Silvia de Longhi and Franz Wilhelm Baruffaldi Preis’s J/V 62 Manticore by just 17 seconds on corrected time to take the title 9 points to 13, a result that came down to the wire after Manticore had closed to within 3 points heading into the final race. James Neville, who also won June’s Sardinia Cup 1 class with Barker calling tactics aboard a different boat, his TP52 Ino Veritas, said Costa Smeralda “has been lucky for us” across both results. Luigi Sala’s Vismara 62 Yoru claimed Maxi 4 by a single point over Vincenzo Addessi’s Mylius 18E35 Fra Diavolo despite Benoit de Froidmont’s Wally 60 Wallyno winning the final race, and H2O secured an eighth Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup class victory, a run stretching back to 2015, finishing on 6 points to Lunz am Meer‘s 12. The Multihull finale was closer still, Adrian Keller’s Irens 78 Allegra winning the last race to draw level with Highland Fling XVIII on 9 points apiece, the title going to Laidlaw’s boat on countback, three race wins to one.
Across the six days, New Zealand’s presence ran through four different boats and four different results. Barker’s Artemis Bleu lost the championship lead on Tuesday and had to fight back through three consecutive wins to secure it in Saturday’s finale. Jones and Harrap aboard Galateia stayed in touch with the top of the Maxi 1 fleet all week but finished third in its world title defence. Pepper aboard Proteus and Butterworth aboard Jethou both finished their Grand Prix campaigns outside the podium places, Pepper by a single tiebreak, Butterworth at the back of the fleet.
The regatta closed with a prize giving in Piazza Azzurra, where Yacht Club Costa Smeralda paid tribute to photographer Carlo Borlenghi, who passed away recently, and whose images helped build the international reputation of the club’s regattas over decades. Attention now turns to the 23rd Rolex Swan Cup, running from 13 to 19 September and marking Nautor Swan’s 60th anniversary with a fleet approaching 170 boats.
