Rolex Giraglia 2022 - Coastal races set to start tomorrow

Rolex Giraglia 2022 © Martina Orsini / Yacht Club Italiano

Saint Tropez race concluded, line honours for Itacentodue. While the wait for the final results continues, a magnificent windy day welcomed sailors in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez today, as many took the opportunity to train ahead of the start of inshore racing tomorrow, Sunday 12 June.

Saturday was spent in various ways by the sailors who have begun to throng the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. The 56 yachts enrolled in the Sanremo-Saint Tropez leg, with departure at midnight yesterday, began to arrive in the afternoon of today, after a long night with little wind. At 2:56:05 p.m. the Felci 71 Itacentodue, owned by Adriano Calvini, crossed the finish line in Saint-Tropez to claim line honours in the first act of the Rolex Giraglia 2022. For everyone else, divided into the two IRC and ORC categories, it is still too early to draw up a definitive ranking. The time limit for the finish is 8 p.m. this evening, at which point it will be possible to define the winners of the first leg of the event.

"We expected more defined thermal breezes, which never filled in, and so it turned into a very complicated night" commented Manuel Polo, navigator on Itacentodue, "according to the weather models we had studied at the start, sailing along the coast was due to be the best option. But that was not the case and we had the 'good fortune' to find ourselves further out than the rest of the fleet and the first to benefit from a nice wind of 10 to 15 knots, which then accompanied us to the finish line. This increase in the breeze will certainly favour the smaller hulls who will probably be able to climb up the ranking in corrected time."

The crews who had been sailing all night on the coastal course had a well-deserved afternoon of rest, while it was an intense day of training in the Gulf for the rest of the fleet, who took advantage of a moderate breeze to implement any final tweaks to the boat and crew.

The next leg, therefore, gets under way tomorrow, with the starting signal at 11 a.m. for three days of coastal racing and the wonderful spectacle of 164 boats spreading their colourful sails in the Gulf of Saint Tropez.

For more information visit the Rolex Giraglia official website.