The exceptional performance of this slow race came from the 78ft Nice, belonging to Marco Malgara, CEO and Founder of ICE Yachts.
On board Nice, Malgara had shared the helming with Slovenian former Olympian and long term maxi yacht sailor Mitya Kosmina.
“It was an interesting day – very difficult,” commented Malgara. “We had several stops and it was very, very difficult because of those. But in the end, although this boat is 31 years old, she was the next boat to arrive after ARCA.”
Nice was second home almost two hours after Benussi’s 100 footer to win the maxi class under IRC corrected time ahead of Durlindana IV and Carlo Puri Negri’s Felci/Farr 80 Atalanta II, winner of the race’s maxi class in 2024.
Furio Benussi and his ARCA SGR crew, collected the prize for line honours.
In 2025 Nice and Atalanta II had filled this race’s maxi class podium behind Guido Paolo Gamucci’s Cippa Lippa X
One of Italy’s most famous maxis, as Capricorno she spent the majority of her 31 years in the hands of the Del Bono family as both a round the world cruising yacht and as a highly successful racer – campaigned by Alessandro Del Bono she won the IMA’s Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge in 2022.
The annual race from Livorno to Punta Ala is the fourth of seven events in the International Maxi Association’s 2025/26 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge. Of the 191 starters ten were in the IRC Over 60 maxi class this year.
