Cork Harbour's Justin Slattery returns to Galateia for the third edition of the IMA Maxi European Championship in seven week's time.

So far, 31 registered entries have been received, with 24 firmed up for the event, organised by the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia (CRVI) in conjunction with the International Maxi Association (IMA). Taking place on or around the Gulf of Naples from 17 to 23 May, the event is supported by Loro Piana, with Rolex as the Official Timepiece.

As regular Afloat readers know, the Irish double Volvo Ocean Race winner headed up a successful campaign at the end of last season, taking third in St. Tropez last October. 

This will be the third occasion the IMA has held its Maxi European Championship with the CRVI and, in what has become a significant event in the maxi yachting calendar, the entry so far matches 2023 when Peter Dubens’ Maxi 72 North Star claimed the European title.

The maxi fleet sets off from Naples on last year's Regata dei Tre Golfi. Photo: IMA/Studio Borlenghi

Once again the event will comprise both offshore and inshore races, providing a complete test for competitors. It starts on Friday, 17 May with the 69th Regata dei Tre Golfi. This 150 mile offshore race will start, and this year also finish, off Naples’ Porticciolo di Santa Lucia, where the CRVI’s clubhouse is located by Naples’ historic Castel dell'Ovo. The IMA Maxi Europeans then continues out of Sorrento from Monday 20 May to Thursday 23 May for the inshore element. This will comprise windward-leeward and coastal courses, hopefully including the popular lap of nearby Capri. As usual racing will be held under IRC with competitors obliged to have ‘endorsed’ certificates for added accuracy.

The Maxi 72s and the ClubSwan 80 My Song approach the Faraglioni rocks while circumnavigating Capri during the 2023 IMA Maxi Europeans. Photo: Studio Borlenghi

A significant development for 2024 is the participation of a highly competitive fleet of 100 footers. While Furio Benussi’s 100ft Arca SGR will be the scratch boat in the Regata dei Tre Golfi, his Trieste team will be out to rectify last year’s race, when they were forced to retire with canting keel issues. This year the IMA Maxi Europeans are being contested by a trio of former Wallycentos – V of Karel Komarek, Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones’ Magic Carpet 3 and Galateia, being campaigned by co-owner Chris Flowers – as well as the Wally 93 Bullitt of Andrea Recordati.

All three Wallycentos have received major turboing over the winter with water ballast tanks added in their aft quarters, enabling them to shed lead from their keels, transforming their performance downwind. But Galateia’s tactician Kelvin Harrap is cautious about the change: “The boat has been performing well over the last few years, but you have to evolve and keep up with what the other boats are doing. We don’t know how it is going to work out rating-wise or how it is going to sit on the water. Crossed fingers it will work.”

Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones' Wallycento Magic Carpet Cubed at full tilt. Photo: IMA/Studio Borlenghi

Other modifications to Galateia include extending the mainsheet track and adding an internal drop line system for ultra-speedy kite drops. “So the spinnaker will now be going through the master bedroom! But hopefully it will take this system to the next level, like the TP52s.”

As to racing at the IMA Maxi European Championship for the first time Harrap says he is looking forward to it. “I know it can be quite light there, but we will have Murray [Jones] and Jordi [Calafat] to help us with that. We put it to Chris [Flowers] about going to Sorrento and the proximity to Capri - he was excited to go somewhere new.”

Event backer Pier Luigi Loro Piana will return with his ever-improving ClubSwan 80 My Song, which claimed the Maxi 1 class last year. Chasing her around the race track will be four former Maxi 72s. In the maxi fleet, these yachts are the most thoroughly optimised and sailed at the highest level. Last year's IMA Maxi European Champion, Peter Dubens’ North Star, returns to defend her title, narrowly won in 2023, beating George Sakellaris’ second-placed Proteus by a mere quarter point. Dubens’ team will be also gunning to see if they can win the Regata dei Tre Golfi outright for a third consecutive year.

“I think it suits our boat,” explains North Star’s double Olympic silver medallist tactician Nick Rogers. “The 72s are always super-strong in any IRC fleet. The racing [at the Europeans] is a bit more windward-leeward orientated and quite often there are sections of the offshore and a lot of the inshores which are light. That suits our boat better.” They are looking forward to bouncing back having broken their bowsprit at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup last year.

Sir Peter Ogden’s 77ft Jethou returns for a third year having won Regata dei Tre Golfi line honours in 2023, when she also established a new record. Jethou and North Star are joined by Peter Harrison’s Jolt (ex-Cannonball) while American Magic team principal Hap Fauth will be campaigning his Bella Mente at the regatta for the first time.

Pier Luigi Loro Piana's ClubSwan 80 My Song off the south side of Capri during last year's event. Photo: IMA/Studio Borlenghi

But the majority of competitors are 60 footers. Notable among these is IMA President Benoît de Froidmont’s Wally 60 Wallyño. Last year they won the IMA’s Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge for a second time, aided by a second place in class at the IMA Maxi Europeans, to Riccardo de Michele’s Vallicelli 78 H20, which is also returning. Other class winners from 2023 include Giuseppe Puttini’s 48-year-old Swan 65 ketch Shirlaf, which comes with a fine track record here having won the Volcano Race in 2015 and also the predecessor to the present event, Rolex Capri Sailing Week in 2021.

Once again the Regata dei Tre Golfi forms part of the IMA’s 2023-24 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge while the inshore races count towards the IMA Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge. The IMA Maxi European Champion is also part of the CRVI's broader Tre Golfi Sailing Week.

Pre-registration for the International Maxi Association’s second Maxi European Championship ended last Wednesday, with the entry list already exceeding the 25 participating in 2022,  writes James Boyd.

For a second year the IMA Maxi European Championship will be part of Tre Golfi Sailing Week, run by the Naples-based Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia (CRVI) in conjunction with the IMA, the body officially tasked by World Sailing to administer and develop maxi yacht racing internationally. It is raced under IRC with all entries required to have IRC Endorsed certificates.

Taking place over 12-18 May, the IMA Maxi Europeans will again start with the CRVI’s Regata dei Tre Golfi offshore race, leaving Naples at 1700 on 12 May and this year finishing off Sorrento. It will be followed by four days of inshore and coastal racing, based out of Sorrento, with courses on the Bay of Naples, including the popular course around Capri, if conditions allow.

The scratch boat this year will again be Furio Benussi’s 100ft Arca SGR. In 2022 Arca SGR comfortably claimed line honours in the light wind Regata dei Tre Golfi, despite in the last miles suffering the failure of the hydraulic ram vital to cant her keel. Hopefully, this is now resolved as an entirely new Cariboni hydraulic system is being fitted ready for this season.

This year she will face the Reichel/Pugh 90 La Bete Portopiccolo Prosecco DOC. Originally launched as Alfa Romeo 1, she won Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours in 2002, the year before Arca SGR did under her original name, Skandia. Then as George David’s first Rambler maxi, she won much silverware and in 2007 set a Rolex Middle Sea Race record that would stand for 14 years.

Sorrento’s Marina Piccola where the IMA Maxi Europeans will be based. Photo: IMA / Studio Borlenghi

They will be joined on the Bay of Naples this year by another Adriatic-based maxi - Alberto Leghissa's 2000 vintage Frers 63 canting keeler Anywave-Safilens, which last competed at this regatta in 2018.

Nipping at the heels of Arca SGR will be the Club Swan 80 My Song of Pier Luigi Loro Piana, which made her race debut at last September’s Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. Over the winter My Song has undergone refinement including the fitting of a larger/more efficient canard and the removal of 400kg from her canting keel’s bulb. Once again she will be sailing with an all-star cast on board, including North Sails President Ken Read on tactics and strategist Alberto Bolzan. 

Competition will again be hottest between the former Maxi 72s which this year number five. Last year Sir Peter Ogden’s Jethou and Peter Dubens’ North Star enjoyed a great match race, with North Star winning the Regata dei Tre Golfi and finishing second overall, just 0.75 points behind Terry Hui's Lyra, the 2022 IMA Maxi European Champion.

Furio Benussi's Arca SGR rounds the Li Galli islands in the 2022 Regata dei Tre Golfi. Photo: IMA / Studio Borlenghi

“If it hadn’t been for that last wind hole in the last kilometre of the last race…” mused North Star tactician Nick Rogers, himself a two time European champion in the Olympic 470 dinghy. “I am really looking forward to it. With a championship like this, it is nice to get the title - it gives it more prestige. Plus Peter [Dubens] loves the Bay of Naples and the great course around Capri – it was really good last year.”

Of more concern are three additional heavyweights joining them this year, including Jim Swartz’s Vesper (Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup winner in 2022), Dario Ferrari’s Cannonball (MYRC winner in 2019 and 2021) and George Sakellaris’ Proteus, second at last year’s MYRC. “It is nice to have more competition,” continues Rogers. “I would put Vesper as one of the best IRC boats on the planet.”

In the group below, several yachts are returning, including the two canting keelers - Guido Paolo Gamucci's Mylius 60 Cippa Lippa X and Fabio Cannavale's Baltic 78 Lupa of the Sea – plus the smart looking Persico-built Felci 65 .G of Gabriele Guerzoni. They are joined by Jean-Philippe Blanpain's Vismara/Mills 62 Leaps and Bounds 2 and the chartered Marten 72 Aragon, both heavily campaigned maxis. Also entered is the Wally 80 Tilakkhana, back on the race track for the first time in five years.

At the IMA Maxi Europeans in 2022, the tightest finish was in class 3 where Vincenzo Addessi’s Mylius 60 Fra' Diavolo, Riccardo de Michele’s Vallicelli 78 H2O and IMA President Benoît de Froidmont’s Wally 60 Wallyño finished the inshore with a three-way tiebreak, but with Wallyño winning the class overall thanks to her better Regata dei Tre Golfi result. H2O and Wallyño are returning.

“I am pleased that the IMA has introduced this European Championship for maxi yachts,” said de Froidmont, whose Wallyño ended up fourth overall in 2022. “Even after one edition, it feels like a prestigious title to win and I hope to at least get on the podium this year. The race course - the Bay of Naples and around Capri - are exceptional and our IMA members appreciate the work put in on this event by our partners in Sorrento and the CRVI.”

Lining up with Wallyño will be Carlo A. Puri Negri's much campaigned Farr/Felci 78 Atalanta 2 and Andrea Fornaro’s Swan 60 Sea Quill, plus several Mylius yachts. They include the two 60s, Manticore of Franz Wilhelm Baruffaldi Preis and Jean-Pierre Dreau’s Lady First III and Aldo Parisotto’s Mylius 65 Oscar3.

“I am really looking forward to be back on the race course again,” notes Aldo Parisotto. “The IMA Maxi Europeans will be the first of three events for Oscar3 this year. I was not in Sorrento last year, but this year I decided to enter.” Racing on board this year will be upcoming talent including Ettore Botticini, skipper in the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s ‘Young Azzurra’ program, with Maurizio Loberto navigating. “Hopefully, we will build a good team as we’ve done in the past.”

Meanwhile, Mauro Bini's Felci 62 Barrique3, Luca Scoppa’s Dehler 60 Blue Oyster and the classic Swan 65 Shirlaf of Giuseppe Puttini are the lowest-rated entries, but no less successful: Shirlaf won on these waters in 2021.