The 100ft maxi yacht Black Jack first home just 15 minutes outside Loro Piana Giraglia race record.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, race followers were anxious to see if Black Jack could break the 14 hours 56 minutes 16 seconds race record set by Igor Simčič’s Esimit Europa II in 2012.
Black Jack certainly knew the way – for not only in past livery was she Esimit Europa II, but before that was Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo II which set the previous Giraglia record in 2008.
Ultimately Black Jack arrived at 03:23:43 on Thursday morning in a time of 15 hours 11 minutes 43 second, just 15 minutes 27 seconds outside the record.
Sadly this year a forecast showing gale force winds of 35-40 knots caused many teams with more inshore-orientated maxis to pull out of the offshore race before it had started.
Ultimately in addition to the far larger fleets of smaller IRC and ORC yachts, 12 maxis led the Loro Piana Giraglia out of Saint-Tropez.
Among them were a few new additions that had not competed in the inshores including Black Jack, Furio Benussi’s 100ft ARCA SGR and Carlo Puri Negri’s 70ft Atalanta II. The latter two arrived race-fit from the 151 Miglia-Trofeo Cetilar where just a week previously ARCA SGR had won line honours and Atalanta II the maxi class under IRC corrected time.
For Black Jack, Loro Piana Giraglia was the first event under new Dutch owner Remon Vos, who was sadly not one board due to an unrelated injury sustained before the start. Several of Vos’ regular crew, including his son Ruben and owner’s representative Tristan le Brun, were on board, being taught the ropes by Black Jack’s regulars like Bradford and navigator Alex Nolan.
Behind, My Song did an admirable job hanging on to the coattails of her 20ft longer rival. 10 minutes behind at L’Escalet, by Giraglia their deficit had only increased to 40 minutes.
However sadly there disaster struck. The wind was still blowing 28-30 knots when they attempted, unsuccessfully to gybe and with the lazy runner caught around the end of the boom and unable to be released, their mainsail split in two horizontally.
After such a blistering run into the Rock, owner and crew were frustrated, but continued on with mainsail dropped. Completing the last 90 miles without main and still scored a reasonable result under IRC.
Over the course of Thursday, the rest of the Loro Piana Giraglia fleet has been arriving in Genoa with tired but exhilarated crew, adrenalin still rushing after one of the most exciting nights at sea most will have experienced.
