Top Irish offshore sailing campaign, Searcher, skipped by Pete Smyth, is among the 60 entries for Sunday's (July 6th) Aegean 600 Offshore Race in Greece.
All 60 teams, including the Royal Irish Ker 43, have gathered at the Olympic Marine venue ahead of the 605-miler organised by the Hellenic Offshore Race Club (HORC).
The fleet consists of 52 monohulls ranging from 33 to 70 feet and 8 Multihulls between 36 and 84 feet. Handicap scoring will determine rankings using the IRC and ORC systems for monohulls and MOCRA for multihulls.
Aegean 600 course START (Sounio) – Milos Island to port – Gate at Santorini Caldera – Kassos, Karpathos, and Rhodes islands to port – Kandelousa to starboard – Kos to port, Kalymnos to starboard, Farmakonisi, Agathonissi, and Patmos islands to port – Gate at Mykonos and Dilos strait – Kea Island to port – FINISH (Sounio)
The length of the course is approximately 605 nautical miles Non-Stop
Onboard Searcher is crewed by Maurice "Prof" O'Connell, Jake Mealy, Barry Byrne, Nick Smyth (Skipper), Dave Cotter, Tim Greenwood, Pete Smyth, Andrew Smith, Kevin Johnson and Jamie Smyth.
In May, Searcher took second place at the Sandberg Palma Vela on the Bay of Palma in the first major multi-class event of the European season.
As regular Afloat readers know, the Smyths earned a class win in the 700-mile 2024 Round Ireland Race and finished second overall in Searcher.
On Friday, July 4, a warm-up race took place allowing teams to fine-tune their skills before Sunday's start.
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