Day 3 on the Bay of Palma and life isn’t becoming any more straightforward for the 1100 athletes competing at the 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels Olympic regatta. ‘Heads out of the boat’ is a well-worn cliché in competitive sailboat racing, and it was the phrase on everyone’s lips after a mind-bending, chaotic day on the water.
No one has mastered the vagaries of the Bay of Palma quite like British ILCA 7 racer Micky Beckett. Winner of the past four editions of the event, you’d think Beckett would feel at home here. “April Fools Day? The whole day felt a bit like a bad joke but it wasn’t unfortunately,” he said. “The wind out there was so unstable it just defied belief, some of the shifts. The number of times I took my jacket off and on is a new record and I finished seriously dehydrated just cooking in the sun for so long these last days. We are currently running at 4-5 hours for each of six races. I feel fine but very tired considering how little racing we have actually done. I am tired as hell,” he said.
Temperamental winds
With a new race format being trialled for the first time at the Trofeo Princesa Sofía, Beckett is aware that the most important battles are yet to come. “We are into the Final (Elimination) series with the points compressed to single points here and there so it is very much still on with as many as six races still could be sailed, so you could say there is still half a regatta left. Palma is proving to be temperamental at the best of times. And from here any time I have voiced an assumption about what will happen I have looked like an idiot so I will refrain from saying anything more.”
For all his frustrations, Beckett has ground himself up to second overall, albeit he’s 10 points behind arch rival and double Olympic Champion Matt Wearn from Australia. After taking some time out of the boat since Paris 2024, Wearn is happy with his progress. “I am happy to sail in anything right now,” he said. “I am just trying to figure things out again. It would be nice to have some lighter stuff now. There is still so much racing left and hopefully tomorrow we will get a sniff of a sea breeze.” Behind the two masters is an up-and-coming talent aged just 21, Germany’s Ole Schweckendiek, but with the points extremely close behind him.
From Full-Nuking to Glass-Out
Eve McMahon (IRL) has managed to hold on to the lead in the ILCA 6 singlehander. “I was really looking forward to a 15-30kts day as forecast and we had a good race until the breeze started to die, with one half of the course in breeze and one half without much wind. Then we had a lot of attempts to start and we had to come back ashore. But a sixth place means I’ll go back out tomorrow still with the yellow bib; sixth is a counter today and looking lighter for the next few days. That will be nice.”
Double world champion Emma Plasschaert (BEL) holds second overall in the ILCA 6: “It was a long day for one race but I won it and so I am happy. I picked a couple of good shifts and maybe got a bit lucky, there is always a bit of luck here and there.” Mara Stransky (AUS), sitting in third, couldn’t believe the extremes of conditions in such a short time. “The wind started out nuking and we ended up nearly becalmed. It did a bit of everything and I was happy to be ahead of the pack as it glassed out. It is nice to head into the last part of the regatta in this position. Palma has never treated me that kindly. I feel like I have stuffed up this regatta in so many different ways before.”
Upwind Maestro
Jordi Xammar and Marta Cardona (ESP) rose to the top of the 470 Mixed standings after a solid day on the water, including winning the first race in 25 knots of wind. Xammar was still grinning from the experience. “We love the strong winds,” he said. “The 470 is a great boat for those top-end conditions. It's something you enjoy, you know? I think everyone loves racing the 470 in those winds. We would have loved it even more in big waves, but we were still going well downwind.”
Xammar has long been known as the downwind king in the 470, but the thing that made him proudest was the comment from his coach. He told me, ‘You nailed all six of the upwind legs today,’ and I said, ‘Wow, I’m going to enjoy this moment!’ That’s when I knew we had sailed well today.”
Matisse Pacaud and Lucie de Gennes (FRA) slip to second overall and Elena Berta and Giulio Calabro (ITA) are in third. Most consistent of the day, the only team to keep all three scores in the top 10, were reigning European Champions Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris who have hauled themselves up to fifth overall after a poor start to the regatta.
The Human Shroud
49erFX Olympic Champion Odile Lambriex van Aanholt and her new crew Marissa Ijben were lucky to keep their mast in the boat after the shroud - one of the supporting wires - broke in between races. “We had been going a bit slow in the previous race,” said Lambriex van Aanholt. “So our coach Pim was adjusting the shroud and then it went ‘Bang!’. We nearly lost the mast so I told Marissa to keep holding on to it. She was holding on to it until our guys came in - like our F1 pit crew - and helped fix the shroud in time for the next race.”
Local favourites and reigning World Champions Paula Barceló and Maria Cantero hold the top spot in the women’s skiff fleet although they’re tied on points with Germany’s Maru Scheel and Freya Feilcke. In third place are the Olympic silver medallist and former World Champion Vilma Bobeck (SWE) now sailing with Ebba Berntsson.
The 49er men went out on the race course after the 49erFX fleet had completed their racing, but reliable wind was in even shorter supply by then. Only one race for the three groups in this 101-boat fleet. A second place in their heat hauls Nevin Snow and Ian McDiarmid (USA) up to top spot, despite Snow having been very ill for some days, struggling to shake off a nasty bug. Uruguay’s Hernan Umpierre and Fernando Diz are in second overall while yesterday’s leaders, Australians Harry Price and Max Paul, fall to third.
Kampman Kite dominance
In the women’s Formula Kite, reigning World Champion from the Netherlands Jessie Kampman is running away with the competition, winning six of the eight heats held so far. Olympic silver medallist from France, Lauriane Nolot, holds second place ahead of Chenxue Liu, part of a strong Chinese squad, in third overall.
In the men’s kite, there’s almost nothing to choose between the top two riders who have been rivals for so many years despite their young ages. Recently turned 21, reigning World Champion from Italy, Riccardo Pianosi, holds top spot by the narrowest of margins from the 19-year-old Max Maeder, Singapore’s Olympic bronze medallist.
In the Women’s iQFOiL Poland’s Anastasiya Valkevich continues to the leaderboard after three races, leading Israel’s Tamar Steinberg by two points. No races, however for the Men’s iQFOil, despite the best attempts of the race committee. This means Britain’s Duncan Monaghan continues to lead overall. “Super wacky out there,” he said. “The wind was crazy. The forecast looked good and we got out there midday, but there were no conditions to lay a course, so we went back and were waiting ashore. You expend a lot of energy getting ready, going out there, coming back in, but in the end it's part of the game.”
No racing for the Nacra 17 catamarans, which means that the Swedes, Emile Järudd and Hanna Jonsson, continue to hold the lead. On Thursday, all but one of the 10 fleets move on to the next round of the competition. With only four races completed, the men’s windsurfers are the only fleet who need to run more qualifying heats before the competition can proceed to the next level.
The 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels is organised by Bahía Activa — the foundation formed by the Real Club Náutico de Palma, the Club Nàutic S'Arenal, the Club Marítimo San Antonio de la Playa and the Balearic Sailing Federation — and is supported by World Sailing. The event is co-financed by the Balearic Islands Government’s Sustainable Tourism Tax fund and sponsored by the Mallorca Responsible Tourism Foundation.
The 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels is part of the Sailing Grand Slam 2026 alongside the Semaine Olympique Française, Dutch Water Week, Kieler Woche and Long Beach & San Pedro Olympic Classes Regatta.