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Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup

For Sir Peter Ogden, Sailing Is ‘Just Good Fun’

By John Clarke

• Sept. 1, 2017

Every September for much of the past decade, Sir Peter Ogden of Britain has competed at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in the emerald waters off Porto Cervo, Sardinia. This year, he will be racing Jethou, his 72-foot Mini Maxi.

A co-founder of Computacenter, one of Britain’s largest computer businesses, he has placed a top priority on one thing: fun. A win is nice, he said, but sailing is all about having a good time.

“You tend to remember the ones you win, not the ones you lose,” said Ogden, 70. “There’s no reason to get angry if you lose. Things happen out on the water. You can’t hold a grudge. What happens on the water, stays on the water. Go have a beer.”

The following conversation has been edited and condensed.

I’ve read that you don’t like to be addressed as “Sir Peter Ogden.”

I’m very proud and was very honored to be knighted by the queen. But I don’t want to run around using the title every day of my life. It can get annoying. You can call me Peter. Or you can call me “boss.”

You are a multimillionaire who can do anything in the world. Why do you keep coming back to sailing big boats?

It’s just an affinity for water and sailing. It’s a personal thing. I love the people I sail with. And I’m getting older. You can’t play football when you’re 70. But you can still sail a big boat.

Do you have any rules on board Jethou?

No shouting. When we were young, it seemed everyone would be screaming. Nowadays, it’s pretty calm. We don’t go for shouting or screaming. Everyone knows the job they have to do. I’ve probably only sailed once with someone who was annoyingly objectionable by shouting at other people. In that case, he didn’t come back.

These races are about one mistake, and you’re screwed. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes I screw up. But when I screw up, I don’t get chastised because I paid for the boat. But on balance, sailors are peaceful people. There’s no need for screaming.

Running a yacht like this is serious business, yet you seem to have a good time. How do you maintain that on board?

Sailing is about having fun. It’s not my life. It’s a hobby. It’s just something I do, and I enjoy it. I also enjoy the people I sail with. We’re not professional people. We are amateur sailors. We have some professionals we sail with, but this is about having fun and enjoying yourself. It’s just good fun.

Yet you still take racing seriously.

When we are on the water, it’s serious. We like to win. But if we don’t, we won’t cry. To win or lose a yacht race is not a matter of life or death. This is about older men who had a lot of fun sailing dinghies and are now sailing big boats. It’s about enjoying the great atmosphere.

If you lose, you feel a bit bad for 10 minutes. But it’s not going to change your life. At the end of the day I have a nice boat, a lovely crew and we all go out to dinner. We laugh and tell jokes. We tell a lot of stories. Every sailor has got stories. It’s tremendous camaraderie, like a lot of sports.

You’ve built a few boats over the years. Do you enjoy those projects?

I enjoy the projects as much as I do sailing. The whole fun of the project is building the boat, thinking about the design, talking to the experts and trying to optimize the boat. Projects and building boats are good fun.

Then you race it. And then after a while you have to make changes — change the sails, keel and the boom. It’s an ongoing project development. There are always adjustments. These boats are very evenly matched. This is all about seconds between winning and losing. My current boat Jethou is a pleasure to sail. And she’s very pretty.

Manslaughter probe announced in Sicily yacht wreck that killed 7

Italian authorities are opening an investigation into whether the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian, which killed seven people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, was manslaughter.

Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said Saturday that the investigation is not targeting specific individuals so far, but that it was "plausible" that the crimes of manslaughter or causing a shipwreck through negligence were committed.

The Bayesian went down off the port of Porticello, near Sicily's capital of Palermo, after an unexpected storm early Monday morning. Fifteen people, including Lynch's wife and the owner of the yacht Angela Bacares, were rescued from the water.

A frantic search of the water and the sunken vessel ultimately recovered the bodies of seven people over the next few days: Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah; lawyer Christopher Morvillo, an American, and his wife Neda Morvillo; Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy Bloomer; and Recaldo Thomas, who was the ship's chef. Lynch had recently been acquitted in a fraud trial in the U.S.; Christopher Morvillo was one of his lawyers and Jonathan Bloomer served as a character witness on Lynch's behalf.

Investigation underway to find out how yacht sank

Investigators will pull the sunken ship from the sea bottom, where it is lying on its side about 160 feet down.

"It's in the interests of the owners and managers of the ship to salvage it," Cartosio said, adding that it's not out of the question for the investigation to shift to focus on a person.

The catastrophe has puzzled naval experts, who say the yacht should have withstood a storm of this magnitude. No other boats in the area reported damage from the storm.

Survivors, including the Bayesian's captain James Cutfield, have been questioned by authorities about what happened on the ship, but haven't yet spoken publicly. Cutfield was "extremely cooperative," Raffaele Cammarano, another prosecutor, said Saturday.

A maritime legal expert told USA TODAY the disaster could lead to lawsuits and possible criminal charges against Cutfield. Mitchell Stoller, a maritime expert witness and captain, said it was Cutfield's duty to monitor weather and prepare to maneuver the boat through rough waters instead of staying anchored. Italian authorities have said the Bayesian was likely anchored before the disaster. It's not clear if Cutfield has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf, and messages seeking comment to a Facebook profile appearing to belong to him went unreturned on Friday.

WHY DID THE BAYESIAN SINK? Investigators seek answers to why the luxury superyacht sank in storm

"Indescribable, unreasonable errors" by the crew, not issues with the boat's design, led to its sinking, Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini, told Reuters.

Cammarano said the passengers were likely asleep when the storm hit, which could be why several were unable to escape. The bodies of most were found on the left side of the boat, where they may have gone to try and find pockets of air as it sank, Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra of Palermo's Fire Brigade said.

Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY; Reuters

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Named after Jethou island near France, Jethou 77 is one of the best looking race yachts on the water at the moment. Having the potential to outpace and outperform. This yacht is competing in several regattas, including Rolex Giraglia, Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez and Tre Golfi Sailing Week.

The 77ft beauty by Judel/Vrolijk belongs to Sir Peter Ogden, an English businessman, whose passion for sailing steered him to name this yacht after his Channel Island. His all-black Jethou 77 is now back in the game with an elongated stern increasing her LOA from 72 to 77ft.

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To support the skyscraping winning attitude of the team, CODE-ZERO is making sure that the crew is equipped with high quality products to achieve their full potential.

This full carbon yacht with an extra long bow sprite is manual power. Managed by 21 crew members she can reach 30 knots of speed downwind. The tactician on this crew, Brad Butterworth, is a 4 times winner of the America’s Cup.

Jethou joins the Europeans on a high, having ended her 2021 season as the outright maxi yacht winner at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. So, if you see an all-black yacht that stops you in your tracks – now you know what she is.

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Yacht Sank in Sicily Due to ‘Endless Chain of Errors,' Ship Maker's Owner Speculates: ‘Everything Was Predictable’

"A series of activities should have been done to avoid finding oneself in that situation," argues Giovanni Costantino, who owns the firm that built the vessel in 2008

• Giovanni Costantino — who is the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the  Bayesian  in 2008 — blames an "endless chain of errors" for the luxury yacht’s sinking on Monday, Aug. 19
• "Everything was predictable. I have the weather charts in front of me here," Constantino told Italian newspaper  Corriere della Sera  of the storm the boat was caught in
• "An unsinkable ship but from the crew an endless chain of errors," the CEO claimed to the outlet

The sinking of the luxury Bayesian  yacht off the coast of Sicily this week  resulted from an "endless chain of errors" by the crew, the ship maker's CEO is speculating.

"This episode sounds like an unbelievable story, both technically and as a fact," Giovanni Costantino — who leads The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the  Bayesian  in 2008 — said,  according to CNN .

While speaking to  Italian newspaper  Corriere della Sera , Costantino said he believes those on board should not have been in their cabins, as he claims they were, when the Bayesian sank in the early hours of Monday, Aug. 19. 

Many details of why the yacht went into the water so quickly remain unclear and it's not yet known what the passengers and crew were doing before tragedy struck.

The 183-foot British vessel sank around 5 a.m. local time on Monday after a "violent storm" while near Porticello, the Italian coast guard said in a statement that was previously obtained by PEOPLE.

"Everything that has been done reveals a very long sum of errors. The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor. And then why didn't the crew know about the incoming disturbance?" Costantino said in his interview, translated from Italian.

Related: Italian Authorities Currently Don’t Have Anyone ‘Under Investigation’ over Luxury Yacht Sinking

"The passengers reported an absurd thing, namely that the storm came unexpected, suddenly. It's not true. Everything was predictable. I have the weather charts in front of me here. Nothing came suddenly ... Ask yourself, why was no fisherman from Porticello out that night? A fisherman reads the weather conditions and a ship doesn't? The disturbance was fully readable in all the weather charts. One could not not know," he argued.

"An unsinkable ship but from the crew an endless chain of errors," the CEO asserted.

The coast guard has said 22 people were aboard the  Bayesian  when it sank — 12 passengers and 10 crew — and that 15 of those were subsequently rescued.

The body of the yacht's chef, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered nearby. 

Costantino's comments came as it was reported that five bodies had been found in the search for the missing six people as of Wednesday, Aug. 21, a source close to the rescue operations confirmed to PEOPLE. Authorities have said that their work is ongoing. 

An Italian government official, Massimo Mariani, reportedly named one of the dead as British tech tycoon Mike Lynch . The other bodies have not yet been publicly identified by authorities. 

Lynch was celebrating with family and friends on the yacht following his acquittal in a fraud trial in June, PEOPLE previously reported.

Related: 'We Are in Shock,' Prominent N.Y.C. Attorney's Firm Says After He and His Wife Go Missing in Yacht Sinking

Costantino offered his view of how the tragedy could have been avoided: "To begin with, in a weather alert situation it was inappropriate to have, as I read, a party. Not that evening. The hull and deck needed to be secured by closing all doors and hatches, after putting the guests at the ship's meeting point as per emergency procedure. Then start the engines and pull up the anchor or release it automatically, put the bow to the wind and lower the keel.

"The next morning they would have departed with zero damage." 

When discussing whether the crew were at fault, Costantino reiterated to the Italian outlet that he believes "errors were made."

"A series of activities should have been done to avoid finding oneself in that situation," he said. "I as the ship's captain would have moved, but even if for some reason I had to stay there, I would have managed those weather conditions which then, let's face it, weren't so crazy."

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.  

Costantino contended that there would have been "a zero risk if the correct maneuvers had been made and if situations that compromised the ship's stability had not occurred," adding to the newspaper that reports that the boat went down in seconds is "nonsense." He believes the yacht would have "went down" after water "started to enter" within "six minutes."

The remaining missing  Bayesian  passengers are Lynch's daughter Hannah as well as Chairman of Morgan Stanley International  Jonathan Bloomer, his wife, Judy , and New York City-based lawyer  Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda , sources have said.

Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued, PEOPLE previously reported.

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Read the original article on People .

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Maker of bayesian yacht blames crew for ‘indescribable, unreasonable errors’ in doomed vessel’s sinking.

The CEO of the company that built the $40 million yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily this week has blamed the crew for the tragedy — saying they had 16 minutes and could have easily saved the seven who died.

“The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors,” Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group, told Reuters of the Bayesian sinking Monday, killing seven of the 22 onboard.

“The impossible happened on that boat … but it went down because it took on water. From where, the investigators will tell,” he said.

Blaming the crew for the “incredible mistake” of not being prepared for the storm, he said: “This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance.”

Costantino, whose company includes Perini Navi, the Italian high-end yacht maker that built the 183-foot superyacht in 2008, staunchly defended its construction — saying it had survived far more extreme storms during 22 years of trouble-free navigation.

Instead, he expressed horror that the crew was unable to save the seven who died — including the Bayesian’s owner, British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah.

He said the crew had a 16-minute window before the craft sank — plenty of time to get everyone to safety.

“The torture lasted 16 minutes,” he told the Financial Times.

“It went down, not in one minute as some scientists have said. It went down in 16 minutes. You can see it from the charts, from the AIS [Automatic Identification System] tracking chart,” he said.

Additionally, doors and hatches should have been closed, and the keel should have been lowered to increase stability, among other safety measures, Costantino said.

Had correct procedures been followed, all passengers would have gone back to sleep after one hour, “and the next morning they would have happily resumed their wonderful cruise,” he added.

“The captain should have prepared the boat and put it in a state of alert and of safety.”

“Ask yourself — why were none of the Porticello fishermen out that night? A fisherman checks the conditions and a ship doesn’t? The disturbance was completely readable on all the weather maps. It was impossible not to know,” he said.

What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily:

• A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing seven passengers.
• British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was identified as one of the bodies pulled from the wreckage. His teenage daughter, Hannah, was the final one to be recovered.
• Lynch — known as “Britain’s Bill Gates” — had invited guests from Clifford Chance, a legal firm that represented him, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage,  according to the Telegraph . 
• Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the  Bayesian sank Monday  shows it disappearing.
• A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the  Bayesian’s speedy demise , maritime experts say.

Bayesian had 22 people on board — 12 passengers and 10 crew — when it capsized and sank during a storm while anchored off the coast of northern Sicily.

Of those on board, 15 people — including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares — were rescued after escaping onto a lifeboat. 

Rescue divers located Lynch’s teen daughter Friday, the final missing person, the Italian coast guard said.   

The bodies of the other dead passengers, including Lynch and New York attorney Christopher Morvillo, were recovered Wednesday and Thursday from inside the hull of the sunken yacht. Those on board were there to help Lynch celebrate his recent acquittal in a major US fraud trial. 

Meanwhile, Italian authorities launched a manslaughter investigation into what downed the $40 million yacht after it was struck by an intense storm early Monday, local media reported.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Termini Imerese had started making inquiries and was looking at a slew of offenses — including “shipwreck and multiple counts of culpable homicide against an unknown person,” sources told Palermo Today.

With Post wires

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Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup: A feast for the eyes

• November 3, 2022

Porto Cervo is one of the most spectacular venues in the world, and this year’s Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup was a feast for the eyes. Andi Robertson reports

Walk the hallowed docks of Sardinia’s Yacht Club Costa Smeralda during the Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup and it was impossible to get anywhere fast. The collection of maxi yachts this year was truly mesmerising, each meriting more than a passing glance. Correspondingly, the army of top professional sailors assembled was literally a who’s who of generations of America’s Cup , Ocean Race and Olympic sailing stars.

To leave the real world and immerse yourself in the Porto Cervo bubble is something special. Even the grizzled, white-haired pros who recall the formative years of the ‘Maxi Worlds’ and who come year in, year out, show no complacency. They love it and always will because it is the pinnacle event of maxi racing.

Post-pandemic, more than ever, there is a renewed appreciation for this spectacular event. Here there are no distractions beyond the wind blown rugged granite scenery, the turquoise waters and the rocky network of islands forming the La Maddalena archipelago.

The 32nd Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup was not the biggest ever, mustering 46 racing maxis in six classes, but it was almost certainly the most competitive event for many years, with quality in depth through each of the divisions.

The fleet was also more diverse than ever. For the first time since 2014 there were four J Class yachts competing under their own JCA handicap – an elegant step back in time contrasting sharply with the debuting foiler Flying Nikka , which raced in its own class, and the just launched powerful ClubSwan 80 My Song which lined up in the 13-boat maxi fleet.

Rambler off Isola delle Bisce lighthouse north of Porto Cervo. Photo: Luca Butto

A different league

“For sure after the pandemic there seems to be more people wanting to sail big boats than ever before and being able to afford to do so. And this regatta was in a different league to previous events in terms of quality,” noted the International Maxi Association’s secretary general Andrew McIrvine.

“One interesting development is now having absorbed the Wally class – which had a bunch of 80-footers and a bunch of 100-footers racing together – and getting them into performance, rather than size related classes, we have a good 13-boat maxi class. That is definitely better.

The foiling Flying Nikka raced in a class of its own

“And we have a more race orientated fleet, there used to be cruising maxis, and we have more professionals, whether or not you consider that a good thing. We are still very strict on the owner-driver rule, except in the Super Maxi fleet where in fact the two top owners are young and steer their boats anyway.”

In a typical September week at Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup there will be days of light winds and very often days lost to the Mistral. A fixed Thursday layday may seem like an anomaly but many owners – and their crews – start to feel their age mid week. This edition was no different, early starts made the best of the building Mistral on Friday, but Saturday proved unsailable.

Without question the standard of boat and sail handling gets higher every year. To see the J Class rivals tacking up ‘Bomb Alley’, as the rock-strewn passage north of Porto Cervo through the La Maddalena and Caprera archipelago is known, in 18 knots of breeze and flat water – seemingly within touching distance of the shore – is incredible.

Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s Highland Fling XI. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

Running downwind America’s Cup rival helms Peter Holmberg and Ed Baird showed a precision in their boat placement akin to sailing a Laser, all while choreographing nearly 30 crew. Are there elements of brinksmanship or bravado? Maybe, but the truth is many of the afterguard crew will have raced on these waters dozens of times, and laying one corner when others can’t will reap a dividend of several boatlengths.

The Super Maxi division victory was the biggest win yet for a ‘young’ (at just turned 50) Swedish owner on his Swan 115 Shamanna .

He also owns the well known Spirit 100 Gaia and Gerdney , a classic Swedish Skerries 95ft cruiser. He races Shamanna with eight of his long time friends – among them a cardiac anaesthetist, a pal who was ‘The Bachelor’ on the Swedish reality show of the same name – and a posse of good pros managed by British former Volvo/Whitbread, America’s Cup ace Guy Barron.

The 82ft custom Wally Highland Fling XI. Photo: Luca Butto

Raising the standards

Barron has sought to keep raising the standards of the ‘amateurs’ so they are fully integrated and respected by the pros, rather than allowing a ‘them and us’ scenario develop. Barron sailed with the owner and his friends originally in Sweden and was able to impart his knowledge and involve them in a way which has become important on the big Swan. “We sat down and said let’s make sure your guys get trained up and are part of it. So between Shamanna and Gaia we share the same pros, the same group and we’re all used to sailing with each other.”

Barron reckons – after some counting – that he has now raced from Sardinia 34 times, the first time being at the 12 Metre Worlds in 1987. “It is one of the best venues in the world and I never ever tire of racing around through Bomb Alley. It is breathtaking. I remember I was on Boomerang and we had THE crash.

Close fleet action. Photo: Luca Butto

“We hit a rock going 9.5 knots, having just got full speed on we stopped dead. We pulled the engine off the mount, cracked every frame in the boat, blew the terminals off the top of the batteries, flattened the wheel, the pedestals, seized the mainsheet and the runner winch. I ended up in an ambulance with George Coumantaros the owner. He’d fallen over and inverted his cheek. I slid forward, hit the solid stainless reaching stanchion and very luckily did not break my leg. I sail past there and still hear the noises in my head. It is a truly wonderful place to sail!”

Mini maxi rivalry

The six boat Mini Maxi 1 division is the domain of what were previously the Maxi 72 class. Now only Jim Swartz’s Vesper and George Sakellaris hull sister Proteus are close to Maxi 72 trim, all of the other four boats have had extensive modifications. Ironically the top two overall were Vesper , with Gavin Brady as tactician, and Proteus .

The changes across the rest of the fleet have been various: Peter Dubens’ North Star is the first boat to now use stored power for running rigging and sails with seven fewer crew – which at the Maxi Worlds gives a four-point rating credit. Spirit of Jethou (23.5m), Cannonball (22.86m) and Bella Mente (22.55m) have all been lengthened and have deeper keels. Bella Mente has a taller rig, as has Cannonball which can also now carry 1,000kg of water ballast per side.

Despite their differences, this was a very competitive class of boats which were conceived as the last word in maxi racing and richly laden with talent.

Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup fleet racing in Sardinia’s La Maddalena Archipelago. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

“We were fortunate to be consistent. We did not screw up,” smiled Gavin Brady after racing. “In fact the boat is arguably the same as when it won the World Championships five years ago (as Momo ). It is cool, I think, for Vesper to win the World Championship with the same keel, the same mast, the same sails.

“Our sport needs to see some sustainability and it is a good message that if you have something that works and you just go and sail well you don’t need to change the mast and the keel. That is something special for Jim as he does not want to go down the ‘arms race’ route. He wants to go and race, and may the best team win.

“This fleet of seven boats have evolved. It’s clear the owners want to develop their boats in the way they want and not be told what to do by a box rule. You have Jethou at one end and North Star at the other and we all went round the top mark within 30 seconds of each other. It’s not the Maxi 72 box rule of old but it is working and we have happy owners.”

Crew on the rail of the iconic J Class Velsheda. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

Water ballast, and how it is treated under rating systems, is one factor many grand prix teams are watching carefully, in readiness to adapt their boats. “The water ballast is the elephant in the room right now,” Brady explains.

“Everyone is trying to be secretive but we all know what is going on. Everyone has drawings to put water in everything from a TP52 to a maxi but we just don’t know what the rule is going to do. I think it is a good way, a clean way to make boats go faster. Salt water is in abundance and if we want to pump water into the boat to make it faster and more fun it is a lot more sustainable than carbon fibre and sails that will go to landfill.”

Lord Irvine Laidlaw bade farewell to his faithful Reichel Pugh 82ft custom Wally Highland Fling XI with a swansong win in the 13-boat maxi class. Cameron Appleton calls tactics alongside navigator Andrew Cape: “Porto Cervo is a unique place usually offering a real range of conditions, inshore racing and navigational type courses, and you have to be good at every part of it,” Appleton recalled.

“You get to know the tricks of the place and where the wind bends are but it is how you get there to use them that is the skill.”

With co-owner Niklas Zennström driving his first regatta on Svea , flying the flag for his native Sweden, the J Class title was never really in doubt, though the racing was always close.

Svea seems to have a speed edge and has a great crew marshalled by Bouwe Bekking. The J Class are looking towards a World Championship in Barcelona during the 37th America’s Cup with potentially seven or eight boats. Next to return to the fold will be Rainbow , bought by Kiwi owner Neville Crichton, who is refitting the boat in Palma to be ready for the later part of next season.

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2012 Rolex Volcano Race: Awards for Jethou yacht and Nilaya superyacht

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Written by Zuzana Bednarova

The Rolex party as well as prizegiving at La Canzone del Mare on Friday 25 May saw the second edition of the Rolex Volcano Race end up in real Caprese style as fifteen international crews toasted a week’s fascinating competing.  A mixture of amazing views of Capri ’s Faraglioni rock formations and a popular venue once owned by Anglo-Italian singer Gracie Fields, and treasured over the years by glitterati and thespians alike, offered a fitting finale to a spectacular week.

112ft superyacht Nilaya sails towards her line honours win - Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

During the ceremony, the crew of Sir Peter Ogden’s Mini Maxi yacht Jethou (GBR) received the week’s most coveted prize – the Rolex Trophy and timepiece – awarded to the overall winner of Leg Two of the 400-nautical mile offshore race which started and finished in Capri and comprised a pulsating journey through the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea .

The fastest boat on the water over Leg Two – Filip Balcaen’s 112-foot Supermaxi yacht Nilaya ¬ was awarded a Rolex timepiece after claiming line honours in a time of one day, two hours and five minutes.

The two celebrating crews have much in common: both are formed by an enthusiastic owner and a group of friends who have sailed together for a number of years, comprising mainly amateurs in addition to handpicked and highly-skilled professional sailors. Their respective paths to victory are the result of hard work and perseverance.

60ft Jethou yacht races upwind to the finish in Capri - Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

Jethou Dominates Ogden’s 60-ft sailing yacht Jethou has frequently been the bridesmaid at Rolex yachting events, missing out on the prizes with luck deserting her at key junctures, from crew members falling overboard to split-second defeats. It seems this team of predominantly Corinthian sailors may have finally found the winning formula. Ogden commissioned an upgrade to his Mini Maxi over the winter, drawing on the advice of professional tactician Brad Butterworth. Jethou is now more powerful following a slight lengthening and the development of a new mast and sail plan. While the yacht’s enhanced prowess has rendered her faster and more responsive in light airs, the crew’s obvious bond and unity is an equally key component in this long overdue success.

The bulk of the Jethou crew is made up of Ogden’s friends and family, the professionals onboard playing a key role in helping develop the team’s confidence and skills. America’s Cup legend Butterworth brings a wealth of experience. “I’ve sailed with other famous sailors and he is one of the guys,” reveals Ogden. “He encourages the crew, shouts at them, but they love him. It is great to have someone who really knows what he is doing. He sees things in 3D that nobody else sees.” Ogden also pointed to the contribution of professional navigator Mike Broughton; “he got us round very safely and was excellent on weather predictions.”

The sailing was a riveting affair. Jethou yacht reached consistent speeds of 26 knots around the Aeolian Islands, the crew knee deep in water as the Mini Maxi flew past these ancient geological wonders almost like an aeroplane. At one stage, incredibly, she was ahead of two titans in Nilaya and Claus-Peter Offen’s 100-ft Wally luxury yacht Y3K (GER). Eventually, on the home stretch and as the wind speed picked up, these two larger yachts gained a narrow advantage over Jethou by virtue of their superior waterline length.

However, Ogden’s Mini Maxi finished an impressive 41 minutes behind the first boat home, enough to help her triumph on handicap, marking an impressive week which saw the crew claim the windward/leeward race in Gaeta and second place overall in Leg One of the offshore race, which ran 100-nm from Gaeta to Capri. In the combined scoring for the three events of the week, Jethou also came out on top. An emphatic winner.

For Ogden victory crowned a memorable week, which he concluded by celebrating his 65th birthday: “It is not a professional crew. I sail for sixty days a year, and they can’t all commit to this, so we have a roster and rotate, although they’ve all been with me a long time.” According to Broughton, who steps down as navigator for the forthcoming Giraglia Rolex Cup : “They are a great bunch to sail with, there’s lots of banter and they’re very happy as we’ve now won our last two races.” With her recent success, Jethou has thrown down the gauntlet to her Maxi rivals ahead of a competitive summer.

Line-honours winner superyacht Nilaya - Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

Terrific team spirit Onboard the largest, heaviest and arguably most complicated yacht – the 112-ft superyacht Nilaya – the workings of the 16-man team are down to a tee. Cajoled by Volvo Ocean Race veteran Bouwe Bekking, who calls the shots and acts as the team’s commander-in-chief, the crew of predominantly Belgian and Dutch sailors are on an upward learning curve.

Owner Filip Balcaen is proud of the progress his largely amateur crew of friends have made over the past 15 years, having started out with little or no sailing experience. “Everything we have learnt and do today comes from the professional sailors,” admits Balcaen. The crew now almost function on autopilot. “A good crew should not talk a lot when something is happening as it is used to working together and in the case of an unexpected event should know what to do. This is the advantage we have of sailing a long time.”

Balcaen and Bekking’s relationship began back in 2003 during a successful Swan European regatta in Cowes. Ever since, Bekking has been the sounding board and inspiration for the crew, which includes four other professional sailors, all Volvo Ocean Race veterans. “The crew has progressed from a 56-ft yacht to an 80-ft yacht, and now this 112-ft yacht, and we know how to communicate,” adds Bekking. “Furthermore, it is a different relationship than that often found on other boats; we call each other up in between races and talk about a lot of things aside from sailing. We have a lot of respect for each other. If people make a mistake, we speak about it calmly and nine out of ten times it doesn’t happen again. It is about giving everyone self-confidence.”

The crew’s approach to sailing the luxury yacht Nilaya has been marked by a gradual evolution and a lack of fear at sailing such a large yacht. Bekking concludes: “A lot of people are impressed by size but the good thing about these guys is that they still approach their sailing as if on a small boat – that way they get the most fun out of it.” In a thrilling tussle during Leg Two of the offshore race, Nilaya pulled clear of the superyacht Y3K and Jethou yacht to claim a hard-fought and deserved line honours title. The entire crew stayed awake for the 26-hour journey, tired eyes and warm smiles greeted the sunset finish in Capri. Enjoyment clearly breeds success. And vice versa.

Luxury yacht Jethou sails towards the finish line in Capri - Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

Eclectic international fleet The galaxy of international crews comprised yachts from ten countries. Some entrants are perhaps more surprising than others. The 60-ft Mini Maxi yacht Wild Joe from Hungary, on the face of it, is an unlikely entrant. After all, Hungary is a landlocked country and hardly conducive to developing sailors capable of attacking the great offshore classics. However, that has not deterred the ambition of skipper Márton Józsa who acquired the 2002-built yacht back in 2009.

“We don’t have seas in Hungary, therefore we don’t have sailors with great ocean experience,” explains Józsa, “we have to build slowly with what we have. Most of the guys we have on the boat have come from small boats such as dinghies. They are learning to sail a big boat and for this reason we include some professional sailors to bring in more experience. This is the third season with this crew, and we are getting better and better.” Unfortunately for Wild Joe, the race ended in disappointment at the Aeolian Islands where an electronics failure forced the crew to withdraw from the race. Wild Joe will hope for better luck in the forthcoming Giraglia Rolex Cup.

Sailing yacht Nilaya with Capri in the background - Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

Márton Józsa, owner Wild Joe Crews from Austria , France , Germany , Russia , Spain , the USA and six Italian yachts completed the fleet. The German crew of Y3K owned and skippered by Claus-Peter Offen, President of the International Maxi Association (IMA) may consider themselves unlucky to have missed out on the major prizes, having pushed Jethou and Nilaya close and been the fastest yacht in both the inshore race and Leg One of the offshore race. The best performing Italian crew was Marco Rodolfi’s Swan 80 Berenice Bis, the overall winner of Leg One of the offshore race and expertly guided by tactician Tiziano Nava.

This second Rolex Volcano Race will be fondly remembered by all who took part, from the dramatic and absorbing sailing conditions during Leg Two of the offshore race, to the intense and hard-fought three-way chase for line honours, to the stunning sunset that greeted the first arrivals in Capri. The week’s most penetrating theme is that of friendship and how two crews with great camaraderie and longevity earned their moment in the sun.

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "2012 Rolex Volcano Race: Awards for Jethou yacht and Nilaya superyacht".

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