he ARC is back in town and that annual pilgrimage of yachts heading across the Atlantic has made landfall. I was out in Grenada to chat with some of the early arrivals in the ARC+ fleet which had made its way across the Atlantic with a stopover in the Cape Verdes. As you might expect, the first few boats in were mainly multihulls, with, an ORC 50 picking up second place followed by a clutch of Outremers. There were, however, some real surprised, not least that, an Italia 15.98 monohull managed to grab line honours. On a relatively light weather passage, skipper Constantino Neri got his crew to hand steer all the way across in order to keep ahead of the chasing pack. The Italia is a light weather flier and the skipper's dedication paid off as they arrived in the early hours of 29 November, several hours ahead of. It was an impressive achievement. “It has been my dream for many years to cross the Atlantic and to finish first is great,” Neri reflected: “The Italia is a beautiful yacht and I absolutely love. I wanted us to hand steer as I felt we had a big crew and it
