On 17 June the Moonbeam of Fife (1903) in the Big Boats class, Linnet (1905) in the Vintage Class, Il Moro di Venezia (1976) in the Classic yachts and Tabasco V (1981) in the Spirit of Tradition all won Panerai watches at the 19th outing of the Argentario Sailing Week at Porto Santo Stefano, in Tuscany.
This marked the close of the second round in the Mediterranean Circuit of the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge, organised by the Santo Stefano Yacht Club and sponsored for the fourteenth year in a row by the Florence-based Panerai sports horology brand.
Argentario was the successful setting for all four of the scheduled races, contested on polygonal courses in the Bay of Talamone. Winds blowing at between ten and twenty knots added to the excitement whipped up by the spectacular scene of forty yachts from eleven nations rounding the marker buoys.
Moonbeam of Fife, built by the Fife yard in Scotland and also known as Moonbeam III, is a gaff cutter around 25 metres long. A regular competitor at the Panerai races for thirty years, at Argentario she came head to head with Hallowe’en (1926), reigning Big Boats champion at the close of the 2017 season.
With three victories in four races in the Vintage Aurici class, Patrizio Bertelli’s 13-metre Linnet, one of eighteen New York Yacht Club 30 yachts in existence around the world, took the honours in its class ahead of the 2-metre Spartan (1913) and Chinook (1916). All three craft were built by the historic American yard Herreshoff of Bristol.
Il Moro di Venezia I (1976), already a Paneria Trophy winner in 2013 and 2015, achieved the same number of victories in Classic A category. The forerunner of the Italian IOR Maxi Yachts, she has raced in the UK and the USA. At Porto Santo Stefano, Massimiliano Ferruzzi’s yacht claimed victory in its category, ahead of St. Christopher (1968) and Outlaw (1963), the historic first Panerai trophy winner in 2005 in the Classic Yachts category.
Four victories for Lion Karl’s Tabasco V, as after the first round at Antibes she dominated in the Spirit of Tradition class in Tuscany. The 12.42 yacht is an IOR 2 Tonner built in 1981 of triple-cross mahogany planking from plans by the Joubert-Nivelt design studio.
Santana, launched in the USA in 1935 from a design by Sparkman & Stephens, was one the yachts taking part for the first time in the Argentario Sailing Week. Between 1945 and 1957 this Bermuda yawl was owned by Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, his fourth wife.
It was also the first time for the magnificent gaff cutter Pandora, launched in 1907 by the Norwegian yard Anker & Jensen from a design by Johan Anker, a prolific designer who designed the Dragone in the 1920s. This monotype class, one of the world’s most popular, was then used for around a quarter of a century at the Olympics.
Three generations of the Frers family raced on board Fjord III (1947), winner of the Bermuda Race in 1954. The famous Argentinean designers all bear the name Germà n. Nowadays the yacht, built in Buenos Aires by the Frers family themselves in viraro and cedar, is owned by Uruguay’s Scott Perry, vice-president of World Sailing, the international sail yacht federation involving 130 nations.
The next event is the Panerai British Classic Week in July at Cowes, UK, a spectacular and exciting regatta in the Solent waves.
