Stops and re-starts in first two legs of the AEGEAN 600
by Hellenic Offshore Racing Club 7 Jul 21:30 BST
7 July 2025
5th Annual AEGEAN 600 © Nikos Giovanidis
After a beautiful breezy start yesterday, but a tough first night and early morning spent fighting zephyrs getting through the Cyclades, at the end of today’s daylight the AEGEAN 600 fleet is back on the move.
The fastest boats have already made their iconic transit of the volcanic caldera at Santorini and are heading southeast towards Kassos in the Dodecanese at the southernmost point of the race... and close to its halfway mark.
This is the 5th edition of the AEGEAN 600 organized by the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club with co-organizers being Olympic Marine and Region of Attica. Rolex is the official timepiece, and other sponsors include the Greek National Tourism Organization, D. Koronakis SA, and this year Mercedes-Benz has joined the AEGEAN 600 as the event’s Official Mobility Partner.
The two leaders in the fleet have been dueling with each for the elapsed time lead nearly all day long since their rounding at Milos in the pre-dawn hours this morning. It was here that just a little light and building breeze of 6-8 knots got them moving enough to start separating from those in the parking lot behind them north of the island.
For the next 55-mile leg from Milos east-southeast towards the next mark of the course at Santorini it was George Procopiou’s Volvo 70 AIOLOS (GRE) and Frédéric Puzin's bright green Carkeek 54 DAGUET 5 (FRA) who led the pack by deliberately sagging well south of the rhumb line where the forecast models indicated slightly more wind (shown in green in the image below). The northerly breeze of yesterday had not only died out last night but had shifted to the west, turning this next leg into a downwind VMG match race for the lead.
Just as in any light air downwind leg on an inshore course race, in these conditions even a slight increase in breeze can dramatically increase the boat speed and also vastly reduce the distance to the next mark by narrowing the gybe angles.
The end result was the rich got richer once they got south into this new breeze, and this showed in the distance extensions made by the lead boats approaching, transiting and exiting Santorini today. About an hour behind the two leaders is Manolis Kondylis’s Neo 570 CARBONITA (ITA), who is leading in ORC scoring while DAGUET 5 has the lead in IRC scoring. Those that are on the 130-mile leg to Kassos now are already enjoying perfect 15-20 knot westerlies which is forecasted to hold steady all night long and through tomorrow as well.
With the breeze holding at this strength and shifting slightly to the northwest for the next 24 hours, fast champagne sailing with reaching spinnakers may very well lie ahead for the fleet.
Throughout the race, from start to finish, race participants can be followed by the YB tracker system found at aegean600.com/tracking