Frenchman Erik Maris’ Zoulou arrived back at Sounion in the early hours of Tuesday morning, just 1 minutes 21 seconds ahead of American Jason Carroll’s Argo after their 605 mile long anti-clockwise lap of the Aegean Sea.
This had taken place in dramatically varied conditions from flat calms to 45+ knots negotiating the narrow gate between Mykonos and Delos.
As a result, the Aegean 600 got the International Maxi Association’s inaugural Mediterranean Multihull Challenge off to the strongest start: Aside from the closeness, Zoulou also established a new race record of 37 hours 18 minutes and 52 seconds, demolishing the previous 45 hours 5 minutes 25 seconds record set last year by the 100ft maxi monohull Leopard 3.
While Zoulou claimed the all-important line honours, in fact the lower rated Argo won under MOCRA corrected time, giving her an early lead in the IMA Mediterranean Multihull Challenge.
Finishing at 14:01 local time Tuesday afternoon, Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft Lucky claimed monohull line honours.
Her elapsed time of 47 hours 31 minutes and 6 seconds was 2 hours 26 minutes outside of Leopard 3’s 2023 record. For the former Rambler 88, the winds were equally erratic, but the ride less hair-raising.
Lucky’s main competition came from Signorini’s former Volvo Ocean Race winner L4 (ex-Ericsson 4 – although much turboed since). L4 finished at 16:42: 38 putting her ahead under IRC corrected time.
Greece’s George Procopiou, aboard his newly acquired VO70 Aiolos, defied the odds to win the race’s Maxi class.
In the process Aiolos also receives maximum points for this event in the International Maxi Association’s 2023-24 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge, which started with last autumn’s Rolex Middle Sea Race and will conclude with next month’s Palermo-Montecarlo.
Fourth overall in the Aegean 600’s full 52 boat IRC fleet, Aiolos came top of the seven competing in the race’s new Maxi class.
Under IRC, Aiolos’ time corrected out to 24 minutes 27 seconds ahead of Jørn Larsen’s turboed VO70 L4 Trifork, in turn 1 hour 26 minutes 43 seconds ahead of Bryon Ehrhart’s 88ft monohull line honours winner Lucky in third place.
In IRC scoring, First Overall is Black Pearl (GER), Stefan Jentzsch’s Botin 56, a remarkable result considering they raced without their racing sails.
In overall ORC scoring the winner is Neomind (GER), but in an extremely tight corrected time margin with Artie III in second: by 1 minute 16 seconds.
There are still many teams left to make the long transit from the east side of the course where the wind is much lighter toward the finish at Cape Sounio on the breezy west side.
The Aegean 600 prizegiving is on Saturday 13 July.
The 2024 Aegean 600 was organised by the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club, the race was supported by Olympic Marine and with Rolex as ‘official timepiece’.
