Strong start for maxi competition at Loro Piana Giraglia
by James Boyd / International Maxi Association 7 Jun 22:23 BST
7-10 June 2025
Race one gets underway on the Baie de Pampelonne - Loro Piana Giraglia 2025 © YCI - Studio Borlenghi
Saint-Tropez laid on fine conditions for the first day of inshore racing at Loro Piana Giraglia, organised by the Yacht Club Italiano in collaboration with the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez. These four days of windward-leeward and coastal races comprise the third of five events in the International Maxi Association's 2025 Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge (MMIC).
Getting under way at 1200, the maxi fleet sailed two windward-leeward races on the Baie de Pampelonne, the first in a 10 knot southerly before the wind veered into the southwest and built into the high teens.
Finding the most trouble-free lane out to the right of the course, digging into the west side of bay seemed to be a winning move today. In the first race, it was Karel Komárek's 100ft V that made the best of this to lead Chris Flowers and David M Leuschen's Galateia into the top mark with defending champion here, Sir Peter Ogden's 77ft Jethou, impressively third on the water, ahead of several theoretically faster competitors.
Ultimately V won by six seconds from Jethou under IRC corrected time, results which were reversed in the second race when the British 77 footer's time corrected out to 29 seconds in front. The day ended with a welcome mix of former Maxi 72s and 100 footers sharing the leaderboard along with Alessandro Del Bono's JV80 Capricorno.
"We started close to the committee boat, because we wanted to be one of the first to go to the right side and to control it, and I think it was a good point," commented V's French navigator Jean-François Cuzon of their first race. The windward-leeward courses set here have the start line located half way up the beat and there is a rule that boats are not permitted to recross this line as they return down the run. "That is a challenge sometimes, especially when the wind is turning a lot, like today. We had a good fight with Galateia - we spend a lot of time racing together and it is good fun," Cuzon continued. In the first race, V benefitted from Galateia losing control of her spinnaker tack line.
For the second race, the wind followed the forecast for the day. "The wind increased, and with the bend around the coast and the right shift, you had to play with that," Cuzon continued. "The thing which is difficult in these conditions is to pick the lay line. The gradient of the wind is not steady, so as the navigator you have to play a lot with the instruments to get the right information." In this race Galateia was first to the top mark but then made a bad manoeuvre allowing V to pass her.
After the two races on day one, V leads from Galateia and Capricorno in the Maxi 100 class and Jethou is ahead of North Star and the Filip Balcaen-steered Balthasar in the Maxi Grand Prix class.
While V and Jethou hold perfect scorelines in their respective classes, this was entirely not the case in the Maxi Alpha class for the faster cruiser-racers where the conclusion of today's two races culminated in a three-way tie between Jean-Pierre Barjon's Botin 65 Spirit of Lorina, Maurits Van Oranje's Wally 80 Sud and Guido Paolo Gamucci's 151 Miglia-winning canting keel Mylius 60 Cippa Lippa X.
Sud won today's first race, no doubt aided by Benoît de Froidmont sailing on board as a guest - the IMA President being the defending champion here, but currently boat-less as his Wally 60 Wallyño undergoes keel repairs following an incident at the recent IMA Maxi European Championship in Sorrento.
In the first race Spirit of Lorina sailed a blazing first beat but it was Sud that prevailed on corrected time. This came as a slight surprise as this was the lighter of the two races. "We need a bit of wind but the boat is, in general, well set-up now, with a good crew and good teamwork, so it was fun. We've just changed the rig set-up, so today the boat felt completely different," commented Van Oranje.
Despite being late for the start, Spirit of Lorina did win the second race, the French team perhaps benefitting from some local knowledge, including tactician Stephane Christidis. "We managed to do very well in the first race, starting third down from the race committee boat," commented the former Olympic 49er sailor. "Then perhaps you are not the first one to go to the right - it's just a question of risk management - you are heading into the land and you have some left shifts and there is a shore effect, when you tack on the right shift to come back - that's very interesting. And our boat was really fast - the trimmers did a really good job so it was easy for us to play with the VMG in speed mode or high mode to stay in pressure." After their poor start, on the first beat the goal was to get ahead of Cippa Lippa X. "It was a really good fight against them," Christidis concluded. In both races Cippa Lippa X finished second.
In the Maxi Beta class Enis Ersü's Contest 63 Blue Vision, winner of today's first race, leads overall ahead of Jérome Bataillard's Shipman 63 Sao Bernardo, a Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez regular and winner of today's second race. Gunter Burkner's new generation Swan 65 Cloudy 7 is third.
Racing continues tomorrow with a coastal race due to take place in harsher conditions with forecasts indicating that the wind may be gusting into the mid-20s.
See the current leaderboard [PDF}.
More information on Loro Piana Giraglia at /www.loropianagiraglia.com