2026 Range Rover Sardinia Cup Day 1 - RORC and YCCS team take early lead
by Yacht Club Costa Smeralda 2 Jun 20:33 BST
31 May - 7 June 2026
The Range Rover Sardinia Cup got under way in style this morning, as 20 boats lined up for the start at 11 a.m. sharp. The historic regatta organised by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda is back on the calendar after a 14-year hiatus.
The event's new club-team format sees each of the ten competing yacht clubs field two boats, one in each class - Sardinia Cup Class 1 (SC1) and Sardinia Cup Class 2 (SC2) - with the overall team standings determined by the lowest combined points total from both entries.
Today's opening coastal race covered approximately 30 miles for SC1 and 22.5 miles for SC2. The course chosen by the Race Committee took the yachts along the La Maddalena channel through the Passo delle Bisce to the island of Spargi. Here, the bigger boats circumnavigated the island clockwise, before a reaching leg home to Porto Cervo, this time leaving the Tre Monti shoal to port before threading back through the Passo delle Bisce. The SC2 fleet, meanwhile, rounded a mark off Spargi before retracing the same route to the finish line off Porto Cervo.
In a light mistral of around 10 to 12 knots, the fleet set off upwind towards the Passo delle Bisce, with most of the SC1 competitors choosing the favoured left side of the course, while many of the SC2 boats immediately broke away from the pack, searching for clean air in the centre of the race course. Throughout the beat to Spargi, tacticians were kept busy chasing the best pressure within the La Maddalena channel, while navigators were tasked with avoiding the rocks and shoals close to the coast, which the SC2 boats in particular were hugging. The Mistral built to around 14 knots in the more northern reaches of the course, with the SC1 boats finding gusts of up to 16 knots off Spargi.
Victory in SC1 went to James Neville's TP52 Ino Veritas, flying the RORC burgee, followed by the wallyrocket51 Django WR, owned by YCCS member Giovanni Lombardi Stronati. The RORC Gold team's IRC 52 Jolt 3 battled with Ino Veritas for much of the race and would have finished second, but a 3.3-point penalty dropped her back to fourth place. Third place went to Roberto Lacorte's wallyrocket51 RocketNikka, racing for the Yacht Club Repubblica Marinara di Pisa.
In SC2, Niklas Zennstroem's IRC 41 Ran claimed the win for the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Gold team, finishing just 51 seconds clear of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda's Botin Fast 40+ Django JP, helmed by Alberto Bolzan and owned by Lombardi Stronati. Third place went to Nola, the Estonian Carkeek 40 MK2 GP representing the Yacht Club Repubblica Marinara di Pisa with Hugo Rocha on tactics and Aksel Magdahl navigating.
The provisional team standings see the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda tied in first place, followed in third place by the RORC Gold team.
Tomorrow, 3 June, a long-distance race of approximately 130 miles is scheduled, slightly shorter for the SC2 yachts, with a 3 p.m. start and strong Mistral winds forecast. The course will take competitors south along the eastern coast of Sardinia, rounding several waypoints, with the final mark some 36 miles offshore, before turning back to Porto Cervo.
This evening, owners and crews are invited to the Crew Party on the YCCS terrace hosted by RocketNikka's owner, Roberto Lacorte, in collaboration with Pharmanutra and Cetilar.