Capricorno v V maxi yacht duel at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez
by International Maxi Association 3 Oct 06:01 AEST
29 September - 5 October 2025
Conditions looked promising this morning with around 12 knots of wind as the 44-strong maxi fleet exited the Golfe de Saint-Tropez bound for the start of their coastal races off the Cote d'Azur hotspot of Pampelonne Beach. However by start time it had dropped to 8 knots and remained very shifty and puffy for the rest of the afternoon.
Following yesterday's layday, overnight the easterly breeze had piped up leaving a short chop, for day three of maxi competition at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, the final and deciding event of the International Maxi Association's Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge series.
In Maxi 1 and 3 there is a tie at the top. In the former this is between Alessandro Del Bono's 82ft Capricorno and Karel Komárek's 100ft V. There was applause for Galateia's return to the race track, having visited La Ciotat along the coast to be repaired following damage she sustained to her hull in a collision on Monday. She bounced back to finish second today, elevating her from the bottom spot in Maxi 1.
Today's winner ahead of second-placed V, albeit by a slender 50 seconds, was Capricorno, which seems to relish the light conditions. "It was a good day for us - she was designed for this," commented her tactician, Brazilian five time Olympic medallist and round the world race winner Torben Grael. "We have to improve our boat handling and manoeuvres and many things, but for sure the boat is much more competitive in the light. We had traffic throughout the race, because we started behind the smaller boats and sailing against bigger boats than you doesn't help as they have less problems with the traffic."
According to Grael, Capricorno's win was set up on the first beat when, despite their relatively diminutive size, they rounded the windward mark second, astern of Galateia and held this to the end of the run after which V powered through. "We tried to look for the pressure, but it was very unstable with big holes and big shifts."
On equal points, jockeying for third in Maxi 1, are currently the 100 footers Pascale Decaux's Tilakkhana II and Joost Schuijff's Leopard 3.
The Maxi Grand Prix class sailed the same course as Maxi 1 and another bullet for Giovanni Lombardi Stronati's Django 7X, the newest but shortest and second lowest-rated of this group. Given this, plus being able to discard the first race, means the Italian 71 footer now effectively holds a perfect scoreline, ahead of Jim Swartz's Vesper and Sir Peter Ogden's 77ft Jethou, which retain these positions overall too after four races.
"We've got a really good sailing team and push it hard," explained Chris Hosking, who operates the runners on Django 7X. "It was a very tricky day - very puffy and shifty with a sea state from the easterly breeze and lots of difficult, chopped up swell." Django 7X suffered a hydraulic issue in the pre-start which caused them to cross the start line late. "Then it was all about lining up the lines of pressure and just keeping your boat moving in the difficult sea state and changes in wind direction."
Jolt and Vesper did well on the right coming out on top at the end of the opening beat as Django 7X suffered more in the dirt from the boats further up the course and then from hoisting an A1 when, with hindsight, they should have called for the Code 0. The A1 they subsequently tore, having to peel to their A1.5 as she, Jethou, Vesper and Peter Harrison's Jolt jockeyed for the lead.
When the race committee opted to shorten course, Django 7X was leading under IRC by almost 8 minutes ahead of Vesper time, with Jethou third.
Sailing a marginally shorter coastal course to the west were Maxi 3-5.
After scoring two seconds, today it was the turn of Luciano Gandini's Mylius 80 Twin Soul B to score her first bullet of Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. "It was very, very hard racing because there were a lot of waves and the wind dropped." Gandini is very much enjoying sailing with his star tactician Paul Cayard: "He is a really incredible man. After 10 minutes we were first. He really knows where is the wind."
However after a discard, Terry Hui's Lyra shares the same number of points as Twin Soul B, having finished second today with Andres Varela Entrecanales's Vismara 68 Pelotari.Project third. Two points behind the leaders overall is Sven Wackerhagen's Wally 80 Rose, which had to discard a disappointing sixth today.
"It was a really tricky race course, because the wind was so scattered," commented Rose's tactician Jesper Radich. "It really came in puffs and we saw wind directions of 50° to 125°.
In these boats you don't have too much control, because you cannot pick the shifts [on which to tack], so you have to come up with a strategy and then execute it. Because if you try to second guess a shift, you do too many tacks and it is like two minutes lost."
In Maxi 4 and 5 Luigi Sala's Vismara 62 Yoru and Enzo Pellizzaro's Solaris 60 Crazy Diamond furthered their perfect scorelines. Yoru finished almost two minutes ahead of Paul Berger's Kallima with Alessandro Doria's Swan 60 Seaquill third.
"It was light wind and big waves," commented Yoru's accomplished tactician Gabriele Bruni "and after the start it was very crowded because the boats in front of us hadn't extended again, but we managed to end the first upwind well - we went out to the right and got some righty in two good shifts (90 to 110°) and we gained a lot. It was an interesting day because the wind was shifting between 80° and 120° and we handled those well. And at the moment the boat is performing very well so we are happy."
In Maxi 5, Crazy Diamond won comfortably, by more than 12 minutes, to finish ahead of the Oyster 825 Viva Le Vida and Federico Intriago's CNB78 Belles. Crazy Diamond's performance came despite being too early for the start down by the pin, forcing her to tack and play the right. "It was a long day because the wind was changing a lot. 30° one way and 30° degrees back and always going down. The waves were still high so it was not fun..." commented Pellizzaro.
Two more days of racing are left and in all five maxi classes there remains plenty of points left on the board for which to fight.
More information on Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez here.
Overall results here.
For more on the International Maxi Association visit www.internationalmaxiassociation.com or see the 2025 IMA Yearbook