20th Palermo-Montecarlo - IRC corrected time victory goes to a first time winner, Manticore
by International Maxi Association 22 Aug 11:21 BST
Black Jack 100 prepares to tie up off the Yacht Club de Monaco's impressive clubhouse - 20th Palermo-Montecarlo © Circolo della Vela Sicilia / Studio Borlenghi
After leaving Mondello, just north of Palermo, at midday on Tuesday, competition in the Maxi class, part of the 41 boat fleet in the annual Palermo-Montecarlo, was decided on Thursday.
The IRC corrected time victory went to a first time winner, while one of the race's most frequent competitors was again both first home and set a new race record, as she did last year.
Typically the annual 437 mile Palermo-Montecarlo offers prolonged light winds to test competitor's patience, often forcing radical action to seek pressure. But for a second consecutive year, the race, organised by the Circolo della Vela Sicilia in partnership with the Yacht Club de Monaco and Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, enjoyed mostly good breeze. Palermo-Montecarlo also concluded the International Maxi Association's 2024-25 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge (MMOC), which began last autumn with the Rolex Middle Sea Race. The 2024-25 MMOC winner will be announced shortly and will be presented with the their silver trophy at the IMA Owner's Dinner during September's Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup.
Black Jack 100 is a boat that knows the Palermo-Montecarlo well having first secured line honours as Esimit Europa 2 in 2010 when she set a new record of 48 hours 52 minutes 21 seconds. Line honours came her way again in 2011/12 and in 2015 when she beat her own record with a time of 47 hours 46 minutes 48 seconds. After a break in Australia, she again won line honours as Australian Peter Harburg's Black Jack in 2023 before being sold to Ramon Vos, under whom she scored line honours in 2024, setting a new record of 44 hours 34 minutes 22 seconds. This year they repeated this: As the race's only 100 footer she led from start to finish, securing line honours and the Giuseppe Tasca d'Almerita Trophy for a seventh time, and reduced the record to 38 hours 53 minutes 16 seconds.
"I think we've had some luck," mused Black Jack 100's skipper Tristan le Brun. "Last year when it was in 15-18 knots upwind and at night downwind, we occasionally had 20-25 knots. This year was mostly a downwind race. We were carrying big sails all the time - light at the beginning and then medium. To Porto Cervo it was downwind VMG, but we were on port tack most of the time, so not a lot of gybes."
Once again the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda oversaw the gate off Porto Cervo. This Black Jack 100 reached after 22 hours 40 minutes, followed almost five hours later by the Austrian VO65 Sisi.
Most surprising was that Black Jack 100 continued up the east coast of Corsica, rather than take the usually favoured route through the Strait of Bonifacio, leaving Corsica to starboard, which is around 30 miles shorter. Le Brun explained that leading up to this decision, the routing kept switching and their decision wasn't finally made until the last minute. "There was more wind and it was downwind - so fast downwind all the way."
Once clear of Corsica conditions deteriorated: "There was a very severe thunderstorm on Wednesday afternoon. We were surrounded by very heavy rain with lightning everywhere. It was not easy to keep the boat in one piece. It was just horrendous. I cannot even guess how much wind we had. We had very little sail up, but were so heeled over that the anemometer would not read properly. We were under A3 in 25 knots of wind and we had a header instantly of 100 degrees. Luckily we had a second to bear away and immediately furled the sail. Literally everyone had their finger on the button...."
They also had gone east as it set them up better to tackle the tricky approach to Montecarlo. "There was drainage from the land - that was the only wind we could use to get to the finish...and it worked."
After a massive refit over last winter, this is Black Jack 100's third consecutive line honours victory this season, following Gotland Runt in Sweden and the Rolex Fastnet Race. "We had zero failures for a third event in a row," le Brun continues. "The crew is doing an outstanding job. We are good at boat handling and make fast sail changes, so we're always carrying the right sails and we're pretty efficient and always on polars. The owner drives a lot - that's going quite well. And we have this new crew which are perhaps not the most famous people, but we are growing."
Next maxi to finish was Sisi, followed by Franz Wilhelm Baruffaldi Preis' Mylius 60 FD Manticore and finally Vincent Beuvry and his French team on the RP69 Intuition that was originally Hap Fauth's first Mini Maxi Bella Mente. However arriving on Thursday afternoon, it was Manticore that under IRC corrected time won significantly - by 6 hours 16 minutes over second placed Black Jack 100.
"It was a beautiful race - we always had some good wind and we only stopped for perhaps one hour on the first night," explained Manticore's tactician Gabriele Bruni. "We started with a southerly and we arrived in Porto Cervo with 25 knots."
For those astern the routing to the west of Corsica was much more certain. "When we entered the Channel [off La Maddalena] the wind was lighter, but we knew it would change from south to west. After one hour with no wind, we got the westerly, so we were upwind to Corsica. Then it was straight until the end." En route to the finish they encountered the westerly Mistral which piped up to 22 knots. Two miles out from the finish, where the wind often gets light, instead Manticore experienced a big thunderstorm, bringing rain and wind. "So we managed to finish quick."
The 2025-26 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge kicks off on 18 October 2025 with the start of the Rolex Middle sea Race.
More information: www.palermo-montecarlo.it