The 69th edition of the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia’s offshore race, the Regata dei Tre Golfi sets sail this afternoon (Friday, 17 May) at 1635 from Naples’ Porticciolo di Santa Lucia.
Supported by Rolex as Official Timepiece, the race kicks off the International Maxi Association’s Maxi European Championship before continuing next week with four days of coastal racing. The Regata dei Tre Golfi is also the third event in the IMA’s 2023-24 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge (MMOC), which started last autumn with the Rolex Middle Sea Race.
Over recent years the Regata dei Tre Golfi has become a more serious yacht race – gone is the romantic midnight start after dinner at the CRVI’s clubhouse in Porticciolo di Santa Lucia. Instead the warning signal for the 25-strong maxi fleet will be at 1630, to make use of the remaining sea breeze to exit the Gulf of Naples. The maxis are followed ten minutes later by the remainder of the Regata dei Tre Golfi’s 106 boat fleet.
The course is a WNW-ESE sausage crossing ‘three gulfs’. Leaving the Gulf of Naples, it heads WNW to Ponza, before returning past Ischia, Capri and then Punta Campanella, at the tip of the Sorrento peninsula, to the southerly turning mark of the Li Galli islands off the Amalfi coast. New for this year’s race is the finish line off Naples which lengthens the course by around 15 miles to 170 miles.
Highest rated under IRC and line honours favourite is Furio Benussi’s ARCA SGR. The 100ft racer, formerly the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours winner Skandia Wild Thing, suffered a serious canting keel failure last year but is now 100% fixed, says Benussi: “The boat is perfect – it’s never been this good. We have worked hard over the winter for it to be competitive and safe.”
For more on the International Maxi Association www.internationalmaxiassociation.com
IMA Maxi European Championship
Follow the Regata dei Tre Golfi here.
