Racing near two live volcanos and around 19 islands presents an endless challenge of a breathtaking course that only the Rolex Middle Sea Race can offer. Behind the beauty of landmark backdrops along the 606nm course, is an exceedingly 360-degree gruelling race that skippers of fame dream of winning.

No wonder that Grant Dalton, the Emirates Team New Zealand America’s Cup syndicate head, described the Rolex MSR as the Mediterranean answer to the other potentially treacherous offshore classics such as the Fastnet and Sydney-Hobart.

This year, we had an impressive setting of four consecutive starts with the breeze practically getting stronger with each start. In all, a 70-strong fleet, from 16 different countries, had assembled at Grand Harbour, providing every conceivable story of close competition, daring manoeuvres and outright determination to win.

Again, the tricky part of this race was over-riding the tidal gate at the Strait of Messina. Smart tactics to bypass the wind shifts from the large and small islands along the second part of the course were the winning factors.

It was so frustrating at times to endure hours of slight various winds that kept on disrupting onboard navigators and strategies.

The big boats in the race, the likes of Esimit Europa, RMSR 2009 winner Alegre and Ran, had to struggle at times to find the winning formula that the smaller boats were enjoying.

More than that, the eight Maltese entries were having a field day this time while engaging themselves in employing clever tactics using their local and multiple-experience participation of the RMSR.

Artie, which missed the winning post by a few minutes last year, actually had a slow start clocking in at 31st position at the first transit point of Capo Passero.

Realising their precarious position, skipper Chris Ripard and Lee Satariano, owner and co-skipper of Artie, recovered from their difficult start and by the time they got to the second transit point at the Strait of Messina, they had improved to 17th place.

A ride of that kind is satisfying as it provides the most extreme test of crew and teamwork.

At the third transit point of Stromboli, the best of the Maltese fleet had made it into the top 20 with Aziza seventh, Artie ninth, Ton Ton 11th, Otra Vez 12th, Jaru 15th, Vikesha 17th, Juno 18th and Elusive St Regis 20th.

Given the optimal weather conditions, anyone with a well-drilled crew could win and at Favignana, both Artie and Otra Vez were already challenging for top spot having only German boat Rockall to contend with.

From then, Artie kept the pressure, racing past Pantelleria and Lampedusa in the runner-up position. The rest of the Maltese fleet were not far behind either, with Otra Vez fifth followed by Ton Ton, Jaru, Juno and Elusive St Regis.

Incredible! At this point, the feeling was that it looked more like a local race than anything else. The only threat was coming from Rockall.

Tensions were running high for these two leading boats.

Mathematical calculations re-quired that Artie had to clock in on the fourth day at 18h 28m 08s with Rockall having more breathing space as it needed to finish at 20h 41m 50s, to outgun provisional leaders Ran on corrected time.

It was here that Artie showed their determination and expertise when, amazingly, they crossed the line on Wednesday at precisely 15h 22m 54s, thus forcing Rockall into a final run of do-or-die tactics as the German boat only had a few minutes to make it in the last 10 miles.

They never did.

In the end, not only did Artie win the prestigious MSR Trophy but Otra Vez placed third, Jaru fourth, Juno fifth, Ton Ton seventh and Elusive St Regis 11th.

The Royal Malta Yacht Club was buzzing after this outstanding result for Maltese boats.

George Bonello du Puis, the club Commodore, proudly em-phasised that this was a golden page in the RMSR history.

“What an amazing fleet of Maltese boats we have flying the eight-pointed cross,” he said.

“I am really proud of the achievements of our club and as a sailing nation too.”

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