Athens, July 19th, 2018.
No less than twelve Optimum Yacht Racing Team members can be found on board four yachts competing in the 55th Aegean Rally. The uniqueness of this high adrenaline sailing event is that every year in its long history, it entails a new route. This year is no different and the route covers more than 350 nautical miles from Faliro Bay in Athens to Amorgos to Lipsi to Paros and the finish under the Poseidon Temple in Cape Sounio.
“As we have decided last November, our team’s glorious Farr 52 footer OPTIMUM 3 is up for sale and team members were encouraged to find alternative solutions to compete on Greece’s pinnacle sailing event. The team plans to downsize into a much smaller racing yacht that will campaign intensively home and abroad keeping all our 25+ members happy and busy. But the sale did not materialize in time and our affection for the Aegean Rally made us creative. As such, team skippers Nikos Lazos and Periklis Livas and five more guys are leading a Romanian-Greek entry on board AFRICANA-Team OPTIMUM, an X-Treme 37. The effort here is to make a gradual transition from a 52 footer down to a 37 footer and get geared for the final 32 footer platform that is on the cards. Five more Optimum guys are spread on BULLET(52 footer), IONIA(41 footer) and CIARA IASON(40 footer) and we plan Optimum happy hour gatherings in all three islands”, says Tassos Dikastopoulos serving as pitman this year on board AFRICANA.
The co-operation AFRICANA-Team OPTIMUM works fine and we are honored as OPTIMUM Team to be selected by Owner-Skipper Laurentiou Gaitan to coach him and his team on improving their sailing and organizational skills in offshore sailing. We can only thank him for his trust and we hope we meet his expectations.