Peter Dubens’s Northstar III clinched the Rolex IMA Maxi Grand Prix World Championship with a race still to sail, as strong mistral winds pushed 18 to 23 knots with gusts to 28 through the fourth day of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup off Porto Cervo on Friday.
The new JV76 had already built a near-unassailable lead with four straight race wins earlier in the series. She didn’t need a fifth: fifth and fourth-place finishes on Friday were enough to put the title out of reach before Saturday’s final race, even as Jolt swept both of the day’s windward-leeward races to try to close the gap. Northstar III leads the championship on 13 points, ahead of Jolt on 21 and Balthasar on 23.
“I think this is the 11th year in a row I’ve been competing in this event with Peter, and it’s the culmination of a lot of work. The team have been mega, and this project has seen a lot of people working a lot of hours to get here. It’s an amazing boat, and there’s still plenty to come, plenty we can learn about how it performs. We’re really proud of this result.”
Nick Rogers, tactician on Northstar III
Racing on Friday ran two formats: windward-leeward series for the Maxi 1 and Maxi Grand Prix classes, and a roughly 30-mile coastal course for the rest of the fleet, out from Porto Cervo past Mortorio and Soffi before beating back around the Tre Monti shoal and Isola dei Monaci to the finish.
Leopard 3 had the better of the day everywhere it mattered, taking both Maxi 1 races to move into the class lead on 12 points, four clear of the WallyCento V, with Galateia a further point back in third. That title race stays open into Saturday’s final day.
Among the coastal-course fleets, James Neville’s Artemis Bleu won again in Maxi 3 to extend her overall lead, ahead of Manticore and a returning Twin Soul B, back in the fleet a day after a rudder failure forced her out. Luigi Sala’s Yoru took a second straight Maxi 4 win over Why Not and Fra Diavolo. In Maxi 5, Riccardo De Michele’s H2O saw its winning streak end by just 23 seconds on corrected time to the Swan 651 Lunz am Meer, though H2O still leads the class comfortably. Highland Fling XVIII made it three wins from three in the Multihull class, beating Allegra home by 1 minute 47 seconds.
The 36th Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup wraps up Saturday with one race apiece for every class, first warning signal at noon local time in a lighter north-northeasterly forecast at 7 to 12 knots. Prize-giving follows at 5.30pm in Piazza Azzurra.
