Rolex Middle Sea Race – Ludde Ingvall's CQS on the podium?

by John Roberson on 24 Oct 2017 With boats still on the race track of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, Ludde Ingvall’s super maxi CQS is provisionally second in ORC Class one. They crossed the finishing line in Malta’s Marsamxett Harbour, at 02:51 local time on Tuesday morning in fourth place on line honours.

“We had a bit of everything during the race,” said Ludde, “we almost came to a standstill between the Straits of Messina and Stromboli, then we hit 36.7 knots on the way down to Lampedusa.

“For the first part of the race we were having a great fight with Leopard and Momo, but then Leopard managed to get away when we made a tactical mistake, and Momo retired.”

The attrition rate has been high, with 59 boats of the 103 starters forced to retire from the race so far, many with damage caused by the big seas and winds that gusted up to 40 knots during the worst of the storm.

This is the first time that Ludde has done the Rolex Middle Sea Race, one of the races on his “bucket list” now ticked off. “I like the Rolex races, they are all classic offshore races that test you,” he commented.

The 608 nautical mile race takes the fleet from Malta, north up the east coast of Sicily, then around the Stromboli volcano and on anti-clockwise around Sicily, before heading south around Pantelleria and Lampedusa, then back to the finish in Malta.