A fleet of the most competitive maxi yachts is gathering in Porto Cervo, Sardinia preparing for the annual Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup organised by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in conjunction with the International Maxi Association. From 43 entries, 32 monohulls and six multihulls will race over five days, starting on Monday 7 September with a layday scheduled for Thursday, conditions permitting.
Headed by its new Secretary General Giorgio Benussi, the International Maxi Association is the official body tasked by World Sailing to administer maxi yacht racing internationally and can hold two official World Championships annually. For a second year incorporated into the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup will be the Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship for the 80-100ft racing yachts as well as the Rolex IMA Maxi Grand Prix World Championship for the former Maxi 72s. The defending champions of both are returning.
In Maxi 1 2025 winner, David M Leuschen and Chris Flowers’ Galateia is back in revised form to face Joost Schuijff’s Leopard 3, which won the first Maxi 1 Worlds in 2024 and was runner-up last year. However the form boat in Maxi 1 this season has been Karel Komárek’s V, winner of both the IMA Maxi European Championship in Sorrento in May and the Loro Piana Giraglia inshore racing in June. At a result she is the present leader of the IMA’s 2026 Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge, clear ahead of Galateia and Sir Peter Ogden’s Jethou.
Aside from optimising their 100ft yacht (adjusting the positioning and capacity of their water ballast) the V team has been putting in the hours on the water and were one of the first teams to arrive in Porto Cervo to begin training a week ago.
“It's going to be tough as usual,” muses 470 gold medallist Šime Fantela, now V’s tactician since Ken Read’s departure to head Komárek’s 2027 America’s Cup challenge. “With Leopard and Galateia – we have been challenging each other this year in every race. We were good in the last few events and our aim is to maintain that standard - that's why we came here early.”
This week the conditions are forecast to be mixed with the breeze up later on, which should suit V, although they have also proved competitive in the light.
This trio will face Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones’ Magic Carpet e, the newest of the 100 footers and her predecessor Pascale Decaux's Tilakkhana winner of PalmaVela's La Larga offshore race earlier this year. Also expected to have their day this week under IRC time correction will be Alessandro Del Bono's 82ft Capricorno, the IMA's 2025 Yacht of the Year; Wendy Schmidt's Botin 85 Deep Blue and Pier Luigi Loro Piana's 80ft My Song, on which Paul Cayard is calling tactics.
Winning the prize for the most hardware in Porto Cervo is Giovanni Lombardi Stronati whose Swan 128 BeCool is preparing for next week’s Rolex Swan Cup, along with a motor yacht of the same name and his wallyrocket 71, Django 7x, which is the defending Maxi Grand Prix World Champion.
“We are not defending, we are attacking!” points out tactician Vasco Vascotto. “We did the regattas in the past, which were very nice and we’ve already celebrated. Now we need to think about the future and be ready and properly trained. We know that there are seven boats that have crews and the boats ready to beat us. We need to sail very well if we want to have a chance.”
This class remains ultra-competitive, bristling with past winners. Perhaps the leading contender is Peter Harrison's Jolt, which was runner-up here last year and in Sorrento in May was crowned the IMA Maxi European Champion. Never to be ignored are Hap Fauth's Bella Mente, winner here in 2023 and George and daughter Christina Sakellaris' Proteus, the 2024 winner. They are up against Sir Peter Ogden's Jethou, at 77ft the longest in the class and Filip Balcaen's Balthasar, outright winner of last year's Rolex Middle Sea Race.
However all eyes are on the new North Star III, newly launched prior to this event for North Sails owner Peter Dubens. With Nick Rogers as tactician, the new North Star is a Judel/Vrolijk-designed 76 footer, built by Persico. While the other Maxi Grand Prix yachts featuring water ballast, North Star III instead features a keel that can be canted up to 12˚ and, like her predecessor, has a rig that ‘twists’ to optimise sail shape.
The lower-rated maxis are divided into three IRC classes.
Favourite in Maxi 3 is perhaps Luciano Gandini’s Mylius 80 Twin Soul B, the 2021 IMA Yacht of the Year. For this regatta Gandini has recruited to his afterguard former America's Cup skipper Francesco Bruni. He will be up against another America's Cup legend in Dean Barker, tactician on the 65ft Artemis Bleu of former Royal Ocean Racing Club Commodore James Neville, who earlier this year won the Sardinia Cup on these waters. Longest in this class is Marcos Tomas Vivian de La Pedrosa's Wally 94 Astra 1 and the Carbon Ocean 84 Aegir of Philip Rann. Scorpione Hormar is one of the popular Baltic 68 Cafe Racers, facing regular contender Pelotari.Project of Andres Varela Entrecanales while smallest in this class is the 62ft racer Manticore (the former Jethou) of Franz Baruffaldi Preis and Silvia De' Longhi.
Maxi 4 has several highly competitive contenders including former IMA President Benoît de Froidmont's Wally 60 Wallyño, winner here 10 years ago, Gerard Logel's Swan 601 @robas, the Mylius 60 Why Not campaigned by Lasse Petterson, and 2025’s runner-up here, Luigi Sala's Vismara-Mills 62 Yoru.
Perhaps the form Maxi 4 boat is Yacht Club Gaeta President Vincenzo Addessi's Mylius 18e35 Fra Diavolo, the present IMA Maxi European Champion. Fra Diavolo has come close to winning in Porto Cervo in the past . This will be her tenth time racing here. “It's so beautiful to sail around here, with so many islands and corners and the good wind, of course. And also it's a pleasure to be in an event with such so many boats racing at such a high level. Plus I am an IMA member and I really love the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda,” says Addessi of why he returns repeatedly. Of this week he believes the winner will be the team that can best adapt to the changing wind conditions.
Another legend returning is Riccardo De Michele’s Vallicelli 78 H2O, the Maxi 5 class favourite. H2O first competed here in 2007 and holds the record for having won the most numbers of times, the first of her seven titles coming in 2015; her most recent last year.
H2O's nearest competitor is Lord Irvine Laidlaw's Highland Fling XI which won five times, while the Magic Carpet team has won seven times (the first in 2000) but in three different boats.
Aside from continuous competition on the same boat, what is the H2O secret? “The team is very, very strong and the boat is good,” says di Michele, who races with an entirely Italian crew. “We continue to optimise which is important. This year we have improved with a new mainsail, and jib. We maintain the process really well, step by step.” H2O prefers stronger conditions which could bode well for later this week.
Up against H2O in Maxi 5 will be the magnificent Truly Classic 90 Atalante and regular competitors the Swan 651 Lunz Am Meer of Riccardo Genghini and Giuseppe Puttini's former Regata dei Tre Golfi winning Swan 65 ketch Shirlaf.
One of the most positive developments for this Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup is the return of the multihull class with six participants: five catamarans, one trimaran. Coming in hot from winning the Superyacht Cup Palma Richard Mille with straight bullets is Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18. Andrew and Anne Nisbet's Gunboat 72 Layla won the IMA's Caribbean Maxi Multihull Series in 2025, which was won this year by Marcos Sirota's Irens 63ft Sophia, which next week will become the first trimaran ever to compete at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. Coco de Mer is Angus Ball’s Gunboat 66 while Gaea is the Morrelli & Melvin 65 of Zachary Plasvic, who twice represented Canada windsurfing at the Olympic Games.
The most capped entry is also the longest - Adrian Keller’s 84ft Allegra, a past winner of both the IMA Caribbean Maxi Multihull Series and of the 2025 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Multihull Challenge. Co-skipper with Keller is Australian Paul Larsen, the fastest yachtsman on the planet (65.45 knots in 2012): “We’ve got six multihulls and strong diversity between Layla and Sophia, the first trimaran here. She fits in well – in the BVI we were swapping tacks, sometimes a bit too close for comfort, all the way upwind. And like us, she likes more wind.
“Here is such an incredible place to sail. The proximity of the land, the emphasis on crew work and laylines and tactics - all of which is paramount and a bit of a leveller. It will also be a test of the ORCmh rating rule as well. And the winner of the multihull class will be getting a Rolex for a first time.”
While the two World Championship classes will each sail two days of windward-leewards, the rest of the racing will all take place on coastal courses for which the Costa Smeralda and the La Maddalena archipelago are world-renowned.