Med Spirit Takes Line Honours in ARC 2011

Med Spirit’s crew celebrates arrival in Saint LuciaAfter battling it out for 11½ days at sea only one hour separated the two leading boats in a spectacular finish to this year’s ARC 2011. In the end it was Med Spirit, the 28.7m super-maxi skippered by Vladimir Kulinichenko, who took line honours in 11 days, 14 hours, 9 minutes and 37 seconds finishing at 02:54:37 on Friday 2 December. The second place boat was Alain Delhumeau’s 15.2m Lerouge Pulsar trimaran, Rayon Vert, who had lead the fleet since the start only to be overtaken by Med Spirit in a gybing battle off Barbados.

Although both boats clocked impressive speeds of 25 knots and covered over 300 miles per day, they were unable to beat the ARC crossing record set by Rinaldo del Bono in Capricorno in 2006 with a crossing time of 11 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 30 seconds. Lighter winds on the final approaches combined with a blown spinnaker on Rayon Vert and problems onboard Med Spirit put paid to their record hopes.

Likewise Vaquita, the Akilaria 40 skippered by Christof Petter was unable to beat the record for the fastest ARC crossing ever for a monohull under 60-feet. With her speed exceeding 23 knots at times, Vaquita beat her nearest competitor in the Racing Division by a full 36 hours. The leading boats were greeted to the traditional ARC welcome of a rum punch and a full-scale musical carnival of steel drummers beating out their rhythm from onboard the press boat.

The majority of the ARC 2011 fleet remains at sea and is expected to arrive in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia, over the next week and a half. The boats toward the front of the fleet are experiencing the light winds of the ‘hole’ around the Caribbean, while those further back are still enjoying light-moderate tradewinds with classic squalls.