Maxi yacht Alfa Romeo is returning to St Tropez for the most prestigious ocean race in the Mediterranean, the 56th Giraglia Rolex Cup. Alfa Romeo, holder of speed record set in 2003, aims to set an even faster time, with the team of America’s Cup Defender Alinghi will be well-represented on board.

Maxi yacht Alfa Romeo is returning to St Tropez for the most prestigious ocean race in the Mediterranean, the 56th Giraglia Rolex Cup. Alfa Romeo, holder of speed record set in 2003, aims to set an even faster time, with the team of America’s Cup Defender Alinghi will be well-represented on board. 

The speed record of 22 hours, 13 minutes and 48 seconds set in 2003 for the St Tropez-Giraglia-Genoa long race (about 243 nautical miles) by maxi yacht Alfa Romeo still stands. The race seen by many as the “Fastnet of the Mediterranean”, a hard-fought contest attracting the best yachts people in the world.

Neville Crichton's 30 metre craft has to date notched up 4 wins out of 4 entries in this prestigious long race organised by the Yacht Club Italiano. This year she arrives in the historical port of St Tropez with a crew of 24 top-level sailors, including a number of the crew of Alinghi, reigning America’s Cup Defender, who will be competing on board Alfa Romeo for the duration of the 2008 racing season.

Among these is Grant Simmer, Managing Director and Design Coordinator of Alinghi, who will be sailing on the Giraglia Rolex Cup with Crichton as strategist, and looking to read the wind right to beat the 2003 record and set a new time.

The 56th Giraglia Rolex Cup will get under way with 200 entrants on 8 June, the first of three days of inshore racing to be held off Saint Tropez. And on June 11th Alfa Romeo will set sail on the ocean race event: following the start off the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, the fleet will round the La Fourmigue lighthouse on the islet of Giraglia, north of Corsica, before racing for the finish line in Genova, for an offshore course totalling 243 nautical miles.

With the 2008 season still in its early days, Alfa Romeo already has an impressive tally of victories to her credit: IRC Group A winner in the Trofeo Pirelli, winner of Rolex Capri Sailing Week and real time winner of the Tre Golfi-Trofeo Loro Piana long event. After the Giraglia Rolex Cup, Alfa Romeo will head for Porto Cervo for the Boat International Super Yacht Cup (23-26 June), and return once more to  Sardinia in September for the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup (Porto Cervo, 2-6 September).