In This Issue
• Palmavela kicks off 2022 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge
• SailGP announces debut event in Asia with Singapore Sail Grand Prix
• No Matter How You Plan To Rig It…Harken Reflex Will Furl It
• Paprec sponsors Transat en double and La Solitaire du Figaro
• Guyader Bermudes 1000 Race
• Good to get going - Infiniti Yachts
• Tom Slingsby joins NYYC American Magic for 37th America's Cup
• Regata dell'Accademia Navale
• A-Cat Worlds
• Featured Charter: HYPR - Volvo 70
• Featured Brokerage:
• • SY SOJANA
• • YYACHTS Y8
• • Elan GT6
• The Last Word: Irving Rosenthal

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Palmavela kicks off 2022 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge
This week’s maxi yacht competition at the Real Club Nautico de Palma's Palmavela is the strongest for several years, with a seven boat class racing under IRC, the four longest all being around 100ft in length. Competition takes place over four days from Thursday until Sunday.

Ever since the heyday of the IOR maxis back in the 1980s, Palma has been a popular venue in the maxi racing calendar, with competitors relishing the ideal sailing conditions on the Bay of Palma and along the Majorcan coast. In 2004, the Real Club Nautico de Palma introduced Maxi Race Week as the opening event of the Mediterranean season. Now known as Palmavela, and with a broader range of one design and handicap classes competing alongside the maxis, the event still maintains its position as first in the International Maxi Association’s annual Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge.

Competition will be especially intense this week with three of the original four Wallycentos entered: the two Reichel-Pugh designs, Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones’ Magic Carpet Cubed and David M Leuschen’s Galateia, lining up with the Judel-Vrolijk design launched as Hamilton, then subsequently lengthened to 107 as Open Season and most recently acquired by 52 Super Series campaigner Jean-Luc Petithuguenin and rechristened Paprec Recyclage. They will be lining up with the Farr 100 Leopard 3 and her enthusiastic Dutch owner, with a veteran crew, many of whom campaigned her alongside original owner Mike Slade.

While these four will enjoy top competition on the water, in with a strong chance under IRC corrected time are several smaller maxis. These include Paul Berger's Swan 80 Kallima and the sole Spanish maxi competing, Andres Varela Entercanales's Vismara Mills 68 Pelotari Project, which last weekend won line honours and her class on corrected time in Palmavela’s offshore race, La Larga. But all eyes will be on Bullitt, the competitive Wally 93 launched in 2018 as Nahita and recently acquired by Andrea Recordati, himself better known as the owner of the Wally 101 Indio.

The race program for the maxis competing at Palmavela comprises two days of coastal races and two of windward-leewards. -- James Boyd / International Maxi Association

www.palmavela.com

www.internationalmaxiassociation.com

SailGP announces debut event in Asia with Singapore Sail Grand Prix
SailGP’s rapid global expansion continues with the addition of Singapore to its Season 3 calendar, as the iconic city-state plays host to Asia’s first Sail Grand Prix on January 14-15, 2023. The event, which is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), will see the league’s 10 hydrofoiling F50 catamarans hit the waters in Singapore for the first time.

In the first event of a three-year deal, the ten teams competing in Season 3 - including new franchises Canada and Switzerland and returning nations Australia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the United States - will race at Parkland Green in the picturesque East Coast Park in the eighth event on the calendar.

The Singapore event will join the nine countries that have already been announced for Season 3, with the championship kicking-off this month at the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix presented by Hamilton Princess on May 14-15. From there, the ten-nation fleet - comprising the sport’s best athletes - will head to Chicago, Plymouth, Copenhagen, Saint-Tropez, Cádiz and Dubai, ahead of Singapore, making it the biggest SailGP season to date.

After Singapore, the league - the first climate positive sports and entertainment property - will head to Christchurch, New Zealand and will conclude with the Season 3 Grand Final taking place at San Francisco Bay in May 2023. One further event is expected to be announced to complete SailGP Season 3.

sailgp.com

No Matter How You Plan To Rig It…Harken Reflex Will Furl It
Reflex delivers. Tacticians can depend on tight, top-to-bottom, out-of-the-sail-plan and on-the-deck furls for asymmetric kites and code sails. Seeing the advantage of deploying and ‘undeploying’ these sails at will, customers are approaching Harken dealers seeking to apply Reflex to new and existing sails rigged in all kinds of configurations. To help, we’ve introduced Reflex web-on head swivels and slide-in tack fittings so the same drive unit services multiple headsail options.

Peter Harken: “For a free-flying sail to furl completely, that top unit swivel needs to start turning now! Everything in the Reflex system is designed to achieve NOW!”

Properly spec’d, code zeros with torsion cables furl beautifully with Reflex. Cable-free code zeros may be webbed directly to Reflex. Asymmetric kites furl using the Reflex torsion cables.

Reflex for retrofit. Reflex for cables. Reflex for cableless. Reflex for everyone.

harken.com

Watch a Reflex cable-free video:

Paprec becomes Title Partner of the Transat en double Concarneau-Saint Barthelemy and Main Partner of La Solitaire du Figaro
Paprec Group - a well-known sponsor in the world of offshore racing - is strengthening its commitment to competitive sailing as the company embarks on a six-year partnership with OC Sport Pen Duick for the two flagship races of the Figaro Beneteau circuit and the French Elite Offshore Racing Championship. The French leader in recycling, Paprec will be the Main Partner of La Solitaire du Figaro from 2022 and Title Partner of the Transat en Double Concarneau - Saint-Barthelemy, which has been newly renamed ‘Transat Paprec’.

While the new partnership brings with it the promise of many great sporting moments across the two major events, the Transat Paprec will also become the first transatlantic race to be contested by mixed male/female double-handed crews, as part of a commitment to increase the participation and opportunities for female skippers.

Paprec and sailing already share a long story. The group was created in 1994 and since then, its commitment to the sport has grown as the company has developed over the years, demonstrating its loyalty to the sector.

For more than twenty years Paprec has supported the greatest champions of ocean racing, including Jean-Pierre Dick, a two-times winner of the Barcelona World Race, four-times winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre, and sailor of the year in 2011. Today, that commitment in the offshore world continues through their support of Yoann Richomme in the construction of a new boat for the Vendee Globe 2024 alongside Arkea.

While Paprec has celebrated six major victories on the IMOCA circuit and five participations in the Vendee Globe, over the last 12 years the company has also enjoyed many successes within the inshore racing circuit, notably supporting a TP52 skippered by Stephane Neve.

The group is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic players in sailing sponsorship.

www.ocsport.com/penduick

Guyader Bermudes 1000 Race
It’s time for the first race of the new IMOCA season and the IMOCA GLOBE SERIES championship of 2022, with an unprecedented 24 solo skippers set to compete in the third edition of the Guyader Bermudes 1000 Race which sets sail at 14.00hrs local time on Sunday.

A 1,200-nautical mile course from Brest back to Brest, via the Fastnet Rock and a waypoint northwest of Cape Finisterre, this sprint race marks the beginning not just of an exciting 2022 season, but the build-up to the Route du Rhum in the autumn and to the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world race in 2024.

The field includes some of the top performers from recent years, among them Charlie Dalin on APIVIA, Jeremie Beyou on Charal and Thomas Ruyant on LinkedOut. There are some very interesting skippers partnered with newly-acquired boats for the first time including Alan Roura on Hublot (ex-Hugo Boss), Pip Hare on Medallia (ex-Bureau Vallee) and Damien Seguin on Groupe APICIL (ex-Maître CoQ IV). The fleet includes two female sailors, five IMOCA rookies and no less than 17 Vendee Globe veterans.

Among the skippers gathering at the Port du Château in Brest is the 29-year-old Swiss veteran of two Vendee Globes, Alan Roura, who will be racing on board the former Hugo Boss that he purchased late last year from the British skipper Alex Thomson. Roura is looking forward to a race that marks the beginning of a new chapter for him in the colours of the watch-maker Hublot.

Also in a new boat is the New Zealand/USA skipper Conrad Colman, who has purchased the former VandB-Mayenne that completed the last Vendee Globe in the hands of Maxime Sorel. Now racing under the name Imagine, Colman will be using the race to showcase a new campaign that requires a title sponsor with the sort of corporate social responsibility and environmental awareness credentials that this tenacious skipper has always promoted.

The action at the Guyader Bermudes 1000 Race gets underway on Friday with speeds runs on Brest Harbour as the IMOCA crews compete in the Pom’Potes Challenge. -- Ed Gorman

imoca.org/en/guyader-bermudes-1000-race

Good to get going - Infiniti Yachts
And get going she definitely did soon after the first new DSS-equipped Infiniti 52 ocean racer hit the water in the UK

It had been a long time coming but the first session of sailing the new Infiniti 52 Tulikettu resulted in a very productive and promising few days. It was in late January from Gosport, on the south coast of the UK, where the boat could be put through the commissioning and sea trials phase of the programme. Stu Bannatyne was on board.

We were extremely fortunate with the weather. Clear skies and a range in windspeeds from zero to 30kts meant we could see all the sail combinations in range and were able to test the DSS foil and other systems extensively under realistic sailing conditions.

The first day we used just the furling J4 and full mainsail to check systems, rig tune and DSS operation. All went well and gave us the confidence on day two to spend considerably more time on the water and go through a bigger range of sailing load cases with more of the inventory. The full size, structured luff J2 headsail fitted perfectly and the Diverse hydraulics powerpack worked faultlessly to enable very accurate positioning of the rams controlling the jib tack and lead.

Full article in the May issue of Seahorse

Tom Slingsby joins NYYC American Magic for 37th America's Cup
Nearly a decade ago, Tom Slingsby helped an American team win the most prestigious trophy in sailing, the 34th America’s Cup. In 2024, he hopes to do it again.

New York Yacht Club American Magic is pleased to announce it has signed Slingsby, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist and multi-class world champion, to its sailing team for its pursuit of the 37th America’s Cup, which will be sailed off Barcelona, Spain, in the Fall of 2024.

Slingsby was a latecomer to competitive sailing, his passion for excellence catching fire while watching the 2000 Olympic Regatta on Sydney Harbour. But he quickly developed into one of the best sailors in the world, winning multiple world championships and an Olympic gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.

In the last decade, he’s won major championships in everything from 100-foot supermaxis to singlehanded foiling Moths including being named the 2021 Rolex World Sailor of the Year.

He sailed with Oracle Team USA in the 2013 and 2017 America’s Cup matches and won the first two seasons of SailGP as the driver of the Australian Team. He will continue with his role on the Australia SailGP Team. -- Justin Chisholm

www.cupinsider.com

Regata dell'Accademia Navale
The fifth edition of the RAN 630 regatta (Regata dell’Accademia Navale,) has ended with a sad prize giving ceremony held at the Yacht Club Livorno: nobody was in the mood for a celebration seeing how just the day before Massimo Patelli, a competitor in the ILCA Master class, lost his life while sailing in the “Settimana Velica Internazionale Accademia Navale e Città di Livorno” sailing week event.

Riccardo Ciciriello’s Cookson 50 TestaCuore Race, flying the Yacht Club Capri burgee, dominated the event from the start winning the Perpetual Challenge Trophy Pierre Hamon award for the Line Honours, the Perpetual Challenge Trophy Accademia Navale for the first placed boat in the largest class (ORC), the One Ocean Trophy awarded by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda to the first boat in the ORC class to round the mark off Porto Cervo, and the “English Lover” Trophy awarded by the Yacht Club Capri to the first boat in real time to round the mark off Capri Island, in the Naples Gulf. The X-Yachts 332 Ultravox, sailed by owner Leonardo Fonti and co-skipper Filippo Buti, won the Double Handed award and placed first in IRC class, second in ORC and first in ORC - B class.

The IRC podium was completed by two Grand Soleil 40s: Blues, skippered by Antonio Maglione and Lorenzo Villi (winners in 2021 in Double Handed) and Renoir owned by Mario Pellegrini, also third placed in ORC.

The special military team trophy, the Trofeo Saverio Marotta awarded to boats that represent the army or navy, went to Gemini, the splendid 1983 First Class IOR designed by Andrea Vallicelli and owned by the Italian Navy.

ran630.it

A-Cat Worlds
They say it was a hard day today, out on old Galveston bay. Because a days racing had been lost due to excessive sea state and higher than advertised winds, Billy Richnow, the Worlds PRO, decided he wanted to run an extra race in each session for the twin divisions. First up, at 10:30 was the Open foiling fleet. The winds were about 12kts from the South East, so the traditional wave chop started up in due course.

At the start, all boats went to the left of the course as to tack right would not prove advantageous in terms of lost time. Half way up, they started to tack across on the layline. The few who tacked earlier then had the starboard advantage as they all closed in on the mark. Young Olympic hopeful Ravi Parent USA 76 had pulled a decent lead and was chased 50 m later by Team USA Sail GP rider Riley Gibbs USA 96. Darren Bundock AUS 88 and Stevie Brewin AUS 4 were in hot pursuit, as were Emmaunal Dode FRA 2, another Olympian, Iago Lopez Marra ESP 97, USA National Champion and local boy, Bruce Mahoney USA 311 and Polish Champion Kuba Surowiec POL 41. It is usual in this class than a breakaway group separated away from the main pack. Their upwind foiling ability is the usual deciding factor. If you can’t master that skill, you are in the next tier now.

As the leaders finished their 3rd race, the Classics were released from the beach for their races. By now the wind had got up to 16-17kts. But, this is meat and drink to most of these guys, as the non foiling Classics are way nicer to sail at the ends of the class 5-22 kt envelope. They don’t want to take off like a seagull at every moment.

In this fleet we already have a clear leader, as was expected. Andrew Landenberger AUS 308, Olympic Tornado medalist and the reigning classic World Champ is head an shoulders above the others to be fair. Plus he laps up the fruity conditions with ease, and won another 2 straight bullets as the planned 3rd race was canned by Billy as it became boat breakingly rough on the course.

Full results

www.aclassworlds.com

Featured Charter
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See listing details in Seahorse Charters

Contact
Lucy Jackson - LV Yachting
Call: +44 (0) 20 3920 6261
Email:
http://lvyachting.com

See the the Seahorse charter collection

Featured Brokerage
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See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Contact Alastair for further details +44747 6888639
carrswoodyachts.com

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YYACHTS Y8. POA EUR.

One size. Two boats.

Lots of options

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Equal to any Y8, as well as all other YYachts, the inimitable ease and performance. For greater strength and lighter weight we laminate all hulls and decks with carbon fibre and epoxy resin and anneal them until final cure

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
T. +49 3834 5858 77-0
E.

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Elan GT6. POA EUR

Our flagship GT6 is a next-generation Grand Tourer that delivers the perfect balance of speed and power, comfort and luxury, good handling and precise control.

Stiff, stable and weatherly, the high-performance hull and sailplan by Humphreys Yacht Design are optimised for short-handed, medium-range cruising. Three generations of Humphreys/Elan design evolution and extensive CFD modelling produce a refined yacht that handles like a thoroughbred and delivers exhilarating performance on all points of sail, across the full range of wind and sea conditions.

For full details

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Elan, d.o.o.
Begunje 1,
4275 Begunje na Gorenjskem,
Slovenia
+386 4 53 51 109

See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/

The Last Word
Sex as you like it is an animal right -- no mere civil liberty. Defend it with your beak and claw. -- Irving Rosenthal, Sheeper

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