A 30-mile almost complete circumnavigation of the Archipelago de La Maddalena, with a light north easterly breeze of 7-9 knots, was the feature of the second day of the 2006 Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Porto Cervo, Italy yesterday.

The leaders of the Racing division fought an interesting battle where some made big gains and others suffered big losses. As expected, it was the two Super Maxis, Alfa Romeo – with Ben Ainslie at the helm – and her near sister ship Wild Oats XI, who stole the show. After Monday’s missed line honours, Alfa Romeo was able to claim the coveted double victory – line honours with a 9 minutes-plus margin over Wild Oats, and a win on handicap. Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory from Germany finished second on corrected time, followed by another German entry, Claus Peter Offen’s Y3K with America’s Cup sailor and former match race world champion Karol Jablonski on board. Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI, second on real time, came in fourth on handicap.

Among the Cruising Division, it was Italian entry Roma of Filippo Faruffini that claimed the double victory, on the water with a 2-minute lead on American Arne Glimcher’s Ghost, and on handicap by seven minutes over Velsheda. Former Olympian Paolo Semeraro, skipper of Roma, commented that, “the courses here are always beautiful, ideal for these types of boats. Today we missed some of the downwind stuff that we had yesterday, however we sailed more upwind. The real critical passage was around La Maddalena where we chose to stay close to shore and got stalled with no wind. We lost some ground on the leaders, but were able to gain some on the rest of the pack. Ghost overtook us here, but in the last upwind leg we caught them again”. Velsheda came in second on handicap, followed by Gunter Herz’s Allsmoke from the UK.

In the Mini Maxi division, with an almost carbon copy situation as the previous day, Carlo Puri Negri’s Atalanta II won line honours, but it was Giorgio Ruffo’s Aleph who claimed the victory on handicap. With two straight firsts, Aleph is now leading the overall class results, followed by Atalanta II and Massimo Violati’s Ops 5. American Clay Deutsch, who has shipped his Swan 68 Chippewa from the US to compete in the Mini Maxi division, lies in fourth.

Results (provisional)

Racing

1. ALFA ROMEO Neville Crichton NZL, 1/1/2.0
2. MORNING GLORY Hasso Platner GER, 3/2/5.0
3. WILD OATS Robert I. Oatley AUS, 2/4/6.0

VOR

1. ABN AMRO ONE ABN Amro Brand NED, 1/1/2.0
2. AMER SPORT TOO Giovanni Marangon EUR, 2/2/4.0

Cruising

1. ROMA Filippo Faruffini ITA, 2/1/3.0
2. VELSHEDA Tarbat Investments GBR, 1/2/3.0
3. ALLSMOKE Gunter Herz GER, 3/3/6.0

Spirit of Tradition

1. ANNAGINE C. E. Van Asbeck NED, 2/1/3.0
2. HETAIROS Rockport Ltd CAY IS, 1/2/3.0
3. ADELA George Lindemann USA, 3/3/6.0

Mini Maxi

1. ALEPH Giorgio Ruffo ITA, 1/1/2.0
2. ATALANTA II Carlo Puri Negri ITA, 4/3/7
3. OPS 5 Massimo Violati ITA, 2/5/7.0

Wally

1. MAGIC CARPET SQUARED Lindsay Owen Jones GBR, 2/1/3.0
2. TANGO Carlo Sama MON, 3/2/5.0
3. J ONE Jean Charles Decaux GBR, 1/5/6.0