FAMILY FIRST THE AT 41ST MIDDLE SEA RACE

North Sails Powers a Clean Sweep of 2020 Race Scoreboard

In the year of Covid, the Rolex Middle Sea Race was a much-anticipated event before many participants tucked their boats away for the season. At the end of the 606 miles, Elusive 2, a Beneteau First 45, claimed overall honors, corrected time for the 2020 race. Their victory is memorable because this is the second consecutive win for the team, co-skippered by Maltese siblings Maya, Christoph, and Aaron Podesta. Elusive 2’s back-to-back success is the first since Nita IV, who won three races between 1978 and 1980.

“It is a huge achievement to have won this race in back to back years,” remarked Christoph. “It is really hard to win the race at the best of times, so winning it twice in a row is massive and something we are all going to be very proud of for a long time to come. We are sailing with our family boat with a family team, and I am struggling to find words to describe the feeling!”

Multi70 Maserati and VO70 I Love Poland took multi, and monohull line honors, respectively. Maserati reached the finished line under the stars in 2 days, 08 hours, 31 minutes, 31 seconds, 15 minutes ahead of their closest competition. Meanwhile, I Love Poland took home the RLR Line Honours Trophy after a match race duel to the finish line with Zbigniew Gutkowski’s E1, formerly Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, which won the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15.

“We are very happy,” commented I Love Poland’s skipper Grzegorz Baranowski. “It was tough from the beginning, with a lot of tacks at the end. Our boat is a special government program for young sailors to learn offshore sailing. For them, this has been a perfect experience. They now know you have to fight to the end. They will remember this forever.”

North Sails celebrates the numerous victories picked up by our clients across the six classes. And a special round of applause for the Rolex Middle Sea Race organizers who, despite challenging circumstances, made it possible for 50 teams representing 14 countries to go sailing.