The brisk Meltemi has continued to persist into the second day of the AEGEAN 600 with the breeze at 15-20 knots, giving all teams fast reaching and downwind rides throughout the first half of the 605-mile race.
Race leaders in elapsed time – Claudio Demartis’s Reichel/Pugh 90 PROSECCO DOC SHOCKWAVE 3 (ITA) and George Procopiou’s Volvo 70 AIOLOS (GRE) – were match racing most of Monday and into last night, including while transiting the spectacular caldera at Santorini.
At the 30-hour mark since the start, the overall race leader on IRC corrected time is DAGUET, followed by another French team, the Mach 50 PALANAD 4, with Russell Whitworth’s TP 52 FINAL FINAL (USA) in third.
In ORC scoring the overall leader was Paval Stole’s JPK 10.30 MARY S (CZE), who was just rounding the southern end of Karpathos, while Paris Kyriacopoulos’s XR 41 XIPHOS (GRE) was ahead headed for Rhodes and third-placed PNEUMA (POL), Andrzej Rozycki’s JPK 10.30, was behind just breaking away from Kasos.
Sailing with team mate Maciej Marczewski, Rozycki leads the ORC Double Handed division, while Massimo Juris and Pietro Luciani racing on their JPK 10.80 COLOMBRE (ITA) maintain their lead from yesterday in IRC scoring, as does Michalis Aftias and Stathis Balomenos’s Outrider 4x LYNX (ITA) in the Multihull division.
Retirements include Alexander Shehu’s Farr 40 ARMAGGEDON (GRE), Fabrizio Scime’s Oceanis 46.1 FELIX III, Andrea Ruckstuhl’s Pogo 36 VOYAGER (FRA), Armando Ortolano’s Solitaire 1740 AGERAS (GRE) and Arto Linnervuo’s Infinity 52 TULIKETTU (FIN).
For the Finns this was particularly disappointing given the high speed potential of their DSS-equipped Infinity 52.