– Sept 13th 2025
Organised by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, with the support of the International Maxi Association and long-time partner Rolex, this year’s Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup celebrated its 35th edition and the 40th anniversary of Rolex’s title sponsorship, which began in 1985.
It was a battle to the finish in the Rolex IMA Maxi Grand Prix World Championship too, which ended with victory for the new wallyrocket 71′ Django 7X, owned by YCCS member Giovanni Lombardi Stronati and with Vasco Vascotto as tactician. Peter Harrison’s Jolt, with Ed Baird as tactician took second place, while third place – tied on points with Jolt – went to Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente with tactician Terry Hutchinson.
The Botin Partners-designed wallyrocket 71′ was launched earlier this year, and the Django team has done well to get their state of the art racer up to World Championship-winning form so quickly. The boat is ground-breaking – substantially lighter and with more water ballast than her rivals, giving her a strong edge downwind.
Tactician and project manager Vasco Vascotto added: “I feel very grateful to everybody for this – it’s amazing and it’s happened because we are a team. We are very happy for Giovanni and Francesca that gave us this opportunity. I think that today we put in our best performance of the year, especially in the last race, pushing with every single manoeuvre. In the end it came down to millimetres.”
Past winner here, Hap Fauth said he had greatly enjoyed the racing: “It doesn’t get any more exciting than this – it’s as close as it can get. If we did everything right, we might have had an opportunity to win. But, hey, we came as close as we could.”
