Optimum and Red Hot Mini Pepper, Winners of the First Leg of the Palma-Melilla-Palma

The prototype “Optimum”, crewed by Mateo Le Calvic and Arthur Meurose, has been the overall winner of the first leg of the Palma-Melilla-Palma regatta. In second place, in the series boats category, came the “Red Hot Mini Pepper”, a team formed by the Italians Nicolo Gamenara and Giacomo Nicchitta, closely followed by the “Douze Etolies”, by Victor Le Roy and Paul Antoine Jacopy.

The competition, organized by the Real Club Náutico de Palma and the Real Club Marítimo de Melilla, is reserved for Mini 6.50 class boats. The fleet left Palma last Saturday, November 9th, and the course has been marked by a mix of favorable downwind conditions and calm zones. This has caused the so-called accordion effect, where the leading boats were temporarily caught by those lagging when the wind pressure decreased at certain points of the route.

The journey left the island of Cabrera to starboard and the islet of Alborán to port, with a strict prohibition of entering Algerian territorial waters. The race, covering a total of 1,000 miles, will resume next Saturday, November 16th, with the return to Palma.

“Optimum”, leader in the prototype category, completed the 500 miles of this first leg in three days, ten hours, and ten minutes. Meanwhile, the “Red Hot Mini Pepper” needed almost three more hours to cover the same distance, followed by the “Douze Etolies”, which arrived 27 minutes later.

Nicolo Gamenara, leader in the Series category, had an incident in May when he collided with a whale near Cape Salinas, in the south of Mallorca, while accumulating miles to meet the requirements for the Mini Transat. Since then, he has been repairing his boat on the island, focusing his preparation for this competition.

The first leg of the Palma-Melilla-Palma is equivalent to a flying finish where the time of this initial crossing will be added to the return to Palma. Although a formal distinction is made between Prototype and Series for classification purposes, the vast majority of entrants (30 of 33) are series models from different designers.

This regatta counts towards the classification for the Mini Transat 2025, a goal that motivates almost all participants. Among the Spanish teams, the first crew to cross the finish line was formed by Tomas Ruiz and Carlos Manera (second in the Mini Transat 2023) aboard the “Suricate”, achieving fourth place in their class. In the rest of the Spanish fleet, Ramón Ribera and Juan María Adriozola in the “Amuitz Sames Company” arrived tenth, Joan Trenchs and Witolp Malecki in the “Pachamama” were eleventh, Miguel Rondón and Marc Claramunt in the “Kristina II”, twelfth, and Hugo Ramón along with Aleix Sellés finished in thirteenth place.