Alfa Romeo led a fleet of 170 boats out of the Gulf of St Tropez this afternoon as the fleet set out on the 243-mile Giraglia Race. After winning two of the three inshore races of the Giraglia Rolex Cup, Alfa Romeo's skipper Neville Crichton has high hopes of notching up a handicap victory in the offshore race to Genoa. The other big target is a shot at the course record, a time of 22 hours, 13 minutes, 48 seconds which Crichton and his team set in 2003 with the previous Alfa Romeo, a fixed-keel 90-footer. The current Alfa Romeo is a 100-footer with canting keel and powered winches, an altogether more potent beast. And yet the Giraglia record has eluded the newer boat.
The fleet bobbed around on a windless Gulf of St Tropez for two hours until the race committee was satisfied the wind had settled down enough for a fair start. The big boats came off the line at 2pm in 5 knots of wind, although as they made their way to the first Rolex mark about 1.5 miles from the start, the breeze dropped away again to almost zero.
