V and Crazy Diamond continue to shine at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez

by International Maxi Association 4 Oct 11:37 NZDT 29 September - 5 October 2025

Finally the breeze dared to enter double figures, the building southwesterly bending around the coast and across the Baie de Pampelonne for the penultimate day of Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, the final event in the IMA's 2025 Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge.

For the first time Maxi 3 and 4 got to sail two windward-leewards as Maxi 1, Maxi Grand Prix and the slowest in Maxi 5 raced coastal courses taking them to the west. The faster boats sailed a similar course to yesterday, albeit in a different wind direction, with an additional windward-leeward off Cavalaire. For Maxi 1, the race started in 8-9 knots and built to 12-13, but no more despite the forecast indicating it might reach the high teens. The inaccuracy of the forecast here makes each morning's sail selection a tough choice for the teams. The wind direction today turned the coastal course into a large windward-leeward but the western-most leg into the bay was a reach.

In Maxi 1 Karel Komárek's V scored her third bullet today and discarding a third she currently holds a 2 point lead over Alessandro Del Bono's 82ft Capricorno. However earlier the situation looked more comfortable for the black 100 footer. Following yesterday's coastal race four boats in Maxi 1 were disqualified for failing to sail the correct course, including the winner Capricorno. However this evening they were reinstated and Capricorno scoring a 1 rather than an 8 for that race has tightened up the Maxi 1 leaderboard considerably, with Joost Schuijff's 100ft Leopard 3 third, having finished today's race third astern of David M Leuschen and Chris Flowers' 100ft Galateia.

According to Croatian 470 gold medallist Sime Fantela, V's strategist, they won today on the first beat. "With these boats it's really hard to overtake if you are behind on the run." Today Fantela spent time up V's towering rig wind spotting. While the right favoured course looked more even than usual, in fact it wasn't until they finally made it to the starboard lay line that they found more pressure to get them in front.

The Maxi Grand Prix class sailed the same course. Here Jim Swartz's Vesper scored her second bullet of the regatta, finishing almost two minutes ahead of Sir Peter Ogden's 77ft Jethou and class leader Giovanni Lombardi Stronati's wallyrocket 71 Django 7X. This leaves the 11-year-old Vesper, second overall just one point astern of Django 7X, very much the newest boat in the fleet.

Serial winner here, Terry Hui's Wally 80 Lyra remains in the unfamiliar position of holding second place in Maxi 3, albeit just two points astern of Mylius Yachts founder Luciano Gandini's Mylius 80 FD Twin Soul B. Hui says he is relishing the challenge. Twin Soul B meanwhile is looking strong following her return to the race course for the first time in three years (Gandini having had to recover from health issues), winning both windward-leewards today.

"Start of the first race was not brilliant for Twin Soul B," commented Gandini. "The wind was blowing nicely. We made some mistakes immediately before the start, but then we found the right trim. Our second start was much better: we were first at the line and always kept a good rhythm. We won both races. When I think that I have not been sailing for the last three years, I am very grateful and proud of my crew."

The first race Twin Soul B won by just 54 seconds from Lyra under IRC corrected time with Sven Wackerhagen's Wally 80 Rose third. In the second she was just 26 seconds ahead of Lyra with Philip Rann's Aegean 600 Maxi class winning Carbon Ocean 80 Aegir third.

Twin Soul B has recently crowned Star class World Champion Paul Cayard calling tactics on board. "They were really short courses, but the right was favoured and we started up by the boat and pretty much got over there in both races and got control of the race," Cayard explains. "In both races we were first as well as being first to finish." This was despite Twin Soul B being the third highest rated in Maxi 3. The wind built from 8-10 knots in the first race to 10-12 in the seconds. "The wind outside was way right and it was wrapping into the bay, so you had to go right."

Maxi 4 was closer but marked the end of straight bullets being scored by Luigi Sala's Vismara 62 Yoru. In the first race today it was the turn to win of Maurits Van Orange's Wally 80 Sud, which finished 1 minute 42 seconds ahead of Alessandro Doria's Swan 60 Seaquill and with Paul Berger's Swan 80 Kallima third. In the second windward-leeward this order was reversed with Kallima on top, 1 minute 32 ahead of Seaquill and Sud third. Yoru scored an uncharacteristic fourth in the first race and then, devastatingly, was OCS in the second, their discard. Remarkably Yoru has hung on to her lead with Seaquill, with her unbroken string of 2nds, just a point adrift from them, and Kallima, in third, a further point astern.

"Today was up and down," said Van Orange. "The races were an hour long so you didn't have time to extend out and if you were lucky you got the right wind shift. It was a lot of fun - a bit different from the coastals. Everybody was super close.

"The week has been generally good. The first days were tough because there was either light wind or a combination of light wind and waves and with a 35-tonne boat you need a bit of wind to get her going. But we weren't doing too badly, especially since this is just the third event we've sailed in this boat." Sud is a sistership of both Lyra and Rose but is much more cruising-orientated and hence races in Maxi 4 rather than 3.

Still enjoying an unbroken string of race wins is Enzo Pellizzaro's Solaris 60 Crazy Diamond in Maxi 5. Today she finished ahead of the Truly Classic 90 Atalante being raced for the first time by her new owner Ulrich Volz with a crew largely from the Lake Constance area of Germany.

"It was a really nice race for us - we had a perfect start and we kept our position," commented jib trimmer Christophe Hönig. "It was really fun. There were boats behind and we really had to fight like in a match race with them going into the finish line. We were first boat at the finish line. So we are really, really happy about today." In their coastal race Crazy Diamond finished just 14 seconds astern on the water, but ahead of corrected time.

The final day of racing at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez is upon us tomorrow when Maxi 1 and Maxi Grand Prix will sail one windward-leeward and the other classes will sail a coastal course followed by a prize-giving at 1900.

More information on Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez here.

Overall results here.

For more on the International Maxi Association visit www.internationalmaxiassociation.com or see the 2025 IMA Yearbook