"Olympia Tigress" skippered by Susan Glenny arriving in Malta for Rolex Middle Sea Race
by Rachel Fallon-Langdon 11 Oct 2019 19:15 BST
19-26 October 2019
`Olympia's Tigress` Skippered by Susan Glenny © Rachel Fallon-Langdon
UK based First 40 "Olympia's Tigress" Skippered by Susan Glenny will arrive this weekend in Malta to take part in the 40th edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race with a diverse, mixed gender, international crew.
UK based yacht Olympia's Tigress owned and Skippered by Susan Glenny will Race in this year 40th edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race. Olympia's Tigress is a regular competitor at many of the Northern Hemisphere 600 offshore races claiming a third in class in the 2018 Caribbean 600 and was recently the overall winner of the Ed Wheelan Celebration Trophy at this years Cowes Week.
Glenny and her crew arrive in Malta this weekend to begin training for the event. Susan was the first female skipper to lead an all female team to complete the Caribbean Caribbean 600 race in 2016 but in this years RMSR Olympia's Tigress will be carrying a mixed gender, multi-nationality crew of varying age demographic. Young members of the British Keelboat Academy (BKA) will race on board as part of the series of race opportunities that @teamtigress Race Team have given to the young sailors throughout the UK's Performance 40 race series and more recently the Les Voiles de St Tropez Regatta.
Glenny will also be joined onboard by Ron Forster, owner of Sydney based First 40 "Aerial" which notably won class twice in the Sydney to Hobart. The rest of the team comprises crew members from Japan, Australia, local Malta residents and a selection of UK based sailors.
This will be Susan's second Middle Sea Race following on from last year when she entered an Elan 450.
Glenny quotes "The middle sea race is one of the toughest and unpredictable 600 mile offshore race courses. The complex Mediterranean weather systems with multiple influences make this a navigation and stamina challenge with extremely fast changing conditions. Last year we experienced fierce electrical storms north of the Messina straight with a lightening bolt striking the water less than 100 meters from the boat during the night, then a 40 knot Mistral through the Favignana channel. This is not a race for the faint hearted by any stretch of the imagination"
Olympia's Tigress will stay in the Mediterranean following the race and will commence a full race season in the Med in March 2020.