All smiles among first finishers of the AEGEAN 600
by Hellenic Offshore Racing Club 10 Jul 13:06 PDT
10 July 2025
As the fastest teams crossed the finish line today at Cape Sounion and made their way to the harbour at Olympic Marine, there were exhausted smiles all around. After nearly 4 days of battle at sea in conditions that varied from 0 to 50 knots, all expressed their feelings of great accomplishment and relief to be back ashore.
"This was a fantastic race, one of the best," said Frederic Puzin, skipper of the Carkeek 54 DAGUET 5 (FRA), and he should know: his impressive offshore race record includes podium finishes in other 600-mile classics such as the Caribbean 600, Sydney-Hobart and Middle Sea races. DAGUET had an impressive finish today, passing the finish line below the Temple of Poseidon only 11 minutes behind the largest monohull in the race, George Procopiou's Volvo 70 AIOLOS (GRE), who finished at 09:32:08 EEST.
This is the 5th edition of the AEGEAN 600 organized by the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club with co-organizers being Olympic Marine and Region of Attica. Rolex is the official timepiece, and other sponsors include the Greek National Tourism Organization, D. Koronakis SA, and this year Mercedes-Benz has joined the AEGEAN 600 as the event's Official Mobility Partner.
"I really liked this race not only because of it toughness to have skills tested in all conditions, but also the spirit of this race and its place in history," said Puzin. "The setting here is amazing: the islands, the sunset, and the feeling of all the legendary sailors that have been here doing what we did for thousands of years."
For most of this long history there were no electronic means of assistance as is common on most modern offshore yachts. Yet DAGUET 5 joined this history too only hours from the finish when after passing through the gate at Mykonos early this morning the Meltemi blast hit them at 50 knots of wind, knocking out their wind instrument from the top of the mast. They were ahead of AIOLOS for most of the race boat-for-boat but the larger more stable VO 70 managed to finally slip by them in this blast of gale-force wind.
"Without instruments we just had to then sail by what we knew," he said, which was putting up their reaching spinnaker past Kea and knocking off the remaining miles to the finish at speeds in the high teens.
Chris Hemans had a different comparative view after finishing his first AEGEAN 600 on his Cookson 50 VARUNA (USA), just 1.5 hours behind DAGUET 5. Hemans had a mixed team of 10 consisting of amateur California sailors with decades of experience from numerous Pacific offshore races like the Transpac, along with some pro-level sailors based in Europe and his two daughters Gray and Sam Hemans and their friend Kyra Phelan with experience mostly in competitive dinghy sailing.
"This race is vastly different than racing to Hawaii," said Hemans. "This race is only one fourth the length but three times as much action in sail changes and tough choices in navigation and tactics. We fought hard throughout this race, even after a disastrous first night. Every member of our team made outstanding contributions and I'm really proud of the entire effort."
The other early finishers today were Adrian Keller's 86-foot catamaran ALLEGRA (SUI) who was the first multihull across the finish at 09:59:54 this morning, Manolis Kondylis's Neo 570 CARBONITA (ITA) at 11:56:02, and Periklis Livas's and Nikos Lazo's Carkeek 47 OPTIMUM S - SAMOS STEAMSHIP (GRE) at 19:04:50.
The next boat expected at the finish will not be until just past midnight: Philip Rann's Swan 80 UMIKO (GBR), with a large pack of several more monohulls and multihulls reaching Cape Sounion not far behind. Most of the remaining fleet is expected to make good time on the leg towards Mykonos and finish through the day tomorrow.
Throughout the race, from start to finish, race participants can be followed by the YB tracker system found at this link: aegean600.com/tracking
Veteran offshore race commentator Dobbs Davis will use the YB tracker as the backdrop for his daily race analysis video shows that started yesterday. These shows will explain how the fleet is progressing based on their positions, the weather and other factors that will affect the race, and are available on the event's YouTube channel.
A first-half race video has also been produced that features on-board footage: