12:00, Tuesday 25th March 2025, Alimos Marina N.C.Kalamaki, Greece.
The writing of the 32nd chapter on Team OPTIMUM story book commences and seems like yesterday when OPTIMUMM, a brand-new Mumm 36 arrived in Greece in 1994 and Team OPTIMUM was established. At that time, young owners Nikos(27) and Periklis(29) had already experienced offshore racing together since 1981 crewing in ½ Ton and ¾ Ton IOR high end competition. Their best result of this 13-year period was 7th overall and 1st Corinthians in the 1989 ¾ Ton IOR World Championship held in Athens, onboard Dehler DB2 MARVIN AGAIN, among stellar international competition. So, 45 seasons sailing together and 32 seasons writing the Corinthian Team OPTIMUM story along some very good friends who share the same passion for offshore racing. A lifetime of experiences, thrills and spills, successes and failures, highs and lows, records and disasters, but never giving up!
“At the yearly Team OPTIMUM Pita gathering held a few weeks ago at Nikos’s house, we discussed the plan and resources available for the 2025 season. It was clear that although our loyal Team OPTIMUM patron Samos Steamship offers its full support for one more year, and OPTIMUM S is fully serviced, maintained and upgraded according to schedule, continuous forecasted team member rotation due to individual external factors limit our capability to campaign extensively and successfully as we would have liked. As such, Periklis and Nikos decided to offer OPTIMUM S for sale and available to a new owner after Aegean 600, in early July 2025. Until then, we have made up a full schedule of training and racing locally in Athens, to get the boat and ourselves in full competitive mode for Greece’s top international offshore event, Aegean 600. Regardless the sale process Team OPTIMUM-Samos Steamship will be competing with OPTIMUM S until handover and O.S.A.’s Dehler 30ods OPTIMUM 4 and LAVORO III during the whole of 32nd season and beyond. In the long Team OPTIMUM story, the driving force has always been the team spirit among Team OPTIMUM members and never the size of the boat”, says enthusiastically Team OPTIMUM member Nikos Kountouriotis reminding the sequence of OPTIMUMs: Mumm 36, Mumm30, Farr 52od, Dehler 30, Carkeek 47…to be continued!
Now that OPTIMUM S is back in the water and the first training weekend completed successfully, the OPTIMUM Sailing Academy two Dehler 30ods will go out in the boatyard for maintenance to get ready to fulfill their mission of sharing the passion of offshore sailing to the young generation for 4th season. O.S.A aims to compete with both Dehler 30s in the 62nd Aegean Rally seducing more “youngsters” to our sport.
Happy Greek Independence Day!!!