10/23/09: NEB Build Dashes to Victory in Rolex Middle Sea Race, Malta


Alegre dashes to victory in Malta
Photo credit: Rolex / Kurt Arrigo

This year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race has wrapped up and the results are in. After more than fifty-five hours and 606 nautical miles of fierce competition through tough weather, Andres Soriano’s Alegre arrived in the Maltese port of Valletta as the overall winner. Since its launch at NEB in May 2008, Alegre has emerged as one of the top “Mini-Maxi” racing yachts on the Mediterranean. Other recent victories have included line honors at the 2008 Middle Sea Race and line honors and class winner at the Giraglia Rolex Cup offshore race earlier this season.

The Middle Sea Race is a highly anticipated offshore event with a course that takes competitors from Malta around the northern tip of Sicily and past many of the smaller islands of the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean Seas. Although Alegre has seen considerable success in light to medium air, it won this year’s race over a two-day period in which the top recorded gusts topped out around 40 knots.

Alegre pulled off the win against some highly competitive rivals, including the 100-foot Super-Maxi ICAP Leopard and the IRC 72 Ran II. Luna Rosa, an IRC 65, boasted a crew of internationally renowned sailors, including multiple Olympic medalists Robert Scheidt and Torben Grael, and closely trailed Soriano and his crew throughout much of the race. After finishing, navigator Will Best reflected that “it revs you up to keep on going ... when there are so many medals on a boat behind you. It’s quite a good feeling really!”

Soriano was thrilled with Alegre’s superior performance and the hard work and coordination shown by her crew. “We’re just friends sailing together and I’m so proud.” The win, he said, “is just overwhelming. It is a testimony to everyone involved, the crew on the race [and] those that helped on the shore and in the preparation, too.”

Although Bella Mente, another 2008 NEB-build, was one of several yachts forced to retire in the tough wind and waves, navigator Robert Hopkins sent a quick note Alegre’s crew before the finish to congratulate them on “sailing a great race.” The crew at NEB were relieved to hear Bella Mente’s withdrawal was caused by sail and forestay problems and that the hull and structure came through unscathed. Luna Rosa’s Robert Schiedt praised Soriano and his crew for their “amazing job. They pushed the boat very well, preserved their equipment in the strong winds... When they needed to make decisions, they made the right ones.”

A Mills Design IRC 68, Alegre was built at New England Boatworks and premiered at the 2008 Maxi Worlds in Porto Cervo, Sardinia. For this project, NEB cooperated with structural engineers from SDK Structures in Tiverton, RI, who were especially proud of Alegre’s performance in the testing conditions. “Alegre has proven to be very competitive in lighter conditions when structural demands are relatively low,” commented Steve Koopman at SDK. “At the same time – as proven on the race course – the structure is sufficiently robust to allow her to be driven to windward under extreme offshore conditions at speeds that outpace the competition. This combination is indicative of the quality of the effort that went into both the engineering and the construction.” Alegre, NEB Hull 50, features include rigging and components by Hall Spars, Harken, and Cariboni.

Link to Rolex Middle Sea Race website