Event
Instant classic
The Aegean is one of the best places in the world to stage an offshore race, as the Aegean 600 has shown
It’s not easy getting new offshore races organised, established and popularised in the racing community - particularly when they are held every year. Yet in only three editions since the first race was run in 2021, the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club (HORC) has done just that with the Aegean 600… prompting referral to this event as “the perfect 600- mile race.” The race itself was conceived as
a vision to attract the international racing community to what Greek offshore sailors already know: the islands and waters of the Aegean Sea are some of the best in the world for testing one’s offshore sailing skills. The conditions are idyllic: bright sun, cloudless skies and warmair and watermake sunscreen and hats themost important equipment to pack.
More than just an island tour HORC has had decades of experience organising popular annual events - like the annual Aegean Rally - that the Greek fleet has enjoyed throughout the years and given themintimate knowledge of the Aegean islands and the conditions of wind and sea throughout the region. This is the basis of their claimthat the Aegean 600 is a race “designed by sailors for sailors.” Accordingly, the racecourse they
have designed is nothing less than stunning in every regard. The Aegean islands are legendary for their beauty, history and culture, and have been attracting sailors and visitors for countless generations. The
62 SEAHORSE
Aegean 600 racecourse has thus been designed to take full advantage of this as a 605-mile anti-clockwise tour of these islands, using no less than 13 of themas officialmarks of the course. Perhaps themost spectacular
of these is in the first third of the race where, after leaving the Attican coast fromthe start off Cape Sunio and sailing past the islands atMilos (birthplace of Aphrodite and discovery of Venus deMilo), the fleet transits through the world- renowned caldera of Santorini, where the whitewashed buildings of the island’s village lie perched hundreds ofmetres above the water in a spectacular natural amphitheatre. The fleet has to enter this confined enclosed space from the northwest, transit around the eroded volcanic plug that lies in its middle, and exit out the south passage en-route to the nextmark of the course, the island of Kassos. This is just one of numerous
navigational challenges that face the Aegean 600 fleet: the islands on the course that need to be rounded give challenges on how to find a balance between safety, shorter distance and avoiding the windless lees fromthe ever-presentMeltemi. Navigators have to be at the top of their game.
The Meltemi: nature’s engine for the race Just as the ancient Greek sailors did for thousands of years, sailing the Aegean in summer is often characterised by discovering how to handle the prevailing north to northwestMeltemi winds.
Above: the 3,000-year- old Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounio overlooks the start and finish lines of the the Aegean 600
Created by the confluence of high
pressure conditions over the Greek mainland and a thermal low pressure over the Turkishmainland, the dry winds of theMeltemi are both welcomed for its cooling effect but also respected for its intensity, particularly in the southern regions of the race area at Kassos, Karpathos and Rhodos. Here these winds can reach 30
or even 40kts in strength in the passages between the islands, with four to six-metre seas to accompany this strong breeze. These are the conditions the fleet encountered in the 2023 edition of the race, where headsail reaching fromKassos to Rhodos was a high-speed ride but one where helmsmen and crews had to demonstrate their seamanship and abilities to safely and prudently handle these serious conditions. Yet, just as theMeltemi can
provide respectful high speed fun and produce record-breaking conditions as it did in 2023, its absence can also cause frustration when navigators and strategists get challenged on how far to deviate off rhumb line to avoid the windless zones in the lee of the islands. And in some years, when theMeltemi is not at its full strength, playing the lee shore is actually beneficial to find local thermals that rivals further out do not
enjoy.Many race leads have been lost in these areas of the course, only to be regained when teams successfully shift gears from light air Code Zeros to reefed sails oncemore to get around the next headland - this is a very dynamic racecourse full of challenges.
HORC/VAGELIS FRAGOULIS & NIKOS ALEVROMYTIS
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