20th Palermo-Montecarlo Regatta - Day 4
by Palermo-Montecarlo 22 Aug 19:19 BST
19-24 August 2025
The 20th Palermo-Montecarlo lived its traditional peak day with 14 boats crossing the finish line after 500 challenging and exciting miles of racing. Four yachts arrived during the Monegasque night, each greeted at the finish line by Race Director Giancarlo Crevatin and the staff of the Circolo della Vela Sicilia with a bottle of wine and by the Yacht Club de Monaco with a warm welcome.
- A super day of arrivals at the 20th Palermo-Montecarlo: 14 boats crossed the finish line overnight
- The situation: 20 boats completed, 10 still racing, and 7 have retired. The provisional rankings (link)
- The Yacht Club de Monaco docks are bustling with the last arrivals on Saturday the 23rd and the awards ceremony on Sunday the 24th
- Tracking to follow the race
As expected, the following boats joined the French Swan 56 Azahar (ninth in elapsed time), Favorit, another Montenegrin Farr 45 (tenth), Gorilla Gang XL, Andrea Statari's Comet 38 flying the YC de Monaco pennant (eleventh), and the Swan 42 Tengher, double-handed by Alberto Magnani and Mario Rabbò (twelfth).
Then a sort of single file of boats began heading toward the Principality, carrying with them stories of the crossing, especially given the strong winds this group encountered during the last night and in the morning, sailing up the northern Tyrrhenian Sea past Corsica: all reported gusts exceeding 30 knots and rough seas abeam, conditions that truly tested the boats and sailors.
Just before 10:00 a.m. on Friday, August 22nd, the excellent Felix III, an Oceanis 46 owned by Fabrizio Scimè of Canottieri Palermo, skippered by Cristiano Lombardo, crossed the finish line. Thirteenth place is a remarkable achievement, with a graceful cruising boat. Just four minutes later, Starfly, a Rimar 44.3 owned by Andrea Alaimo of LNI Palermo, arrived, carrying among others Beppe Tisci, president of the Federvela Zone VII Committee. He too experienced challenging conditions, with the boat suffering several damages (a broken spinnaker and vang).
Ten more minutes and the Race Committee stopped the fifteenth boat: Overdose Charlie, a French Dehler 36 skippered by Luc Baradat from Marseille, followed by South Kensington, a First 35 owned by Massimo Licata D'Andrea of the Circolo Canottieri Lauria, and then the second double-handed crew: K'Mena, a J99 owned by Eric Muller of the Yacht Club de Monaco, seventeenth overall. Still very close (seven boats gathered in less than an hour at the finish line), Bora Fast, the Sun Fast 3600 of Pentena Sailing Academy, owned by the Circolo della Vela Sicilia, skippered by Tommaso Bardazzi, and Sur, a First 36.7 from the Yacht Club Livorno, skippered by Enrico Dho with a young crew, almost all engineers, crossed the finish line!
More than six hours will pass before the smallest boat in the fleet arrives at 6:21 PM: Cellissima, a Sun Fast 30 OD owned by Fausto Cella, a very recent design by the French studio VPLP, with three caliber sailors aboard: Francesco Farci, Tommaso Stella, and Andrea Iacopini. After an aggressive race and the decision to leave Corsica to port, they suffered a drop in the wind in the final stretch, but they can be satisfied.
The lightning-fast Palermo-Montecarlo 2025, the twentieth anniversary race, is racing toward its conclusion: ten boats remain in the race, two of which are docked in port awaiting repairs and a restart, while seven have officially retired.
The corrected time rankings are taking shape: in the Maxi group (four boats), Franz Baruffaldi Preis's Manticore, CV Sferracavallo, is leading; In the ORC group (the largest, which awards the Angelo Randazzo Challenge Trophy), No Regret, the ICE52 owned by Felice Egidi, is first. The boat was chosen as the Circolo della Vela Sicilia's boat and sailed by a crew led by skipper Edoardo Bonanno and tactician Gaetano Figlia di Granara, who also leads the IRC group. The final arrivals will take place between tonight and tomorrow, followed by the awards ceremony at the Yacht Club de Monaco and the grand finale of the twentieth edition.