The Giraglia's offshore race, the event's main act, went to sea on Wednesday 17 June — the first warning signal in the late morning off Saint-Tropez, per the organisers' programme — sending the fleet of hundreds on close to 240 nautical miles around the Giraglia rock off northern Corsica and down to Genoa. As of Friday, the fleet is spread along the course's final approaches: the front runners finished into the Ligurian port's industrial grandeur within a day of the start, the mid-fleet sails through its second night, and the backmarkers carry the race's democratic truth — the overall prize on corrected time stays open until the last boat's finish, and Saturday's prize-giving at the Yacht Club Italiano makes it official.
The race is organised by the Yacht Club Italiano with the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez, and the week's full programme — four days of inshore racing in the gulf before the offshore start — ran to the published schedule through 16 June.
What the race decides this weekend
Two contests, as always: line honours for the first boat into Genoa, historically the big boats' and the multihulls' business, decided within the first day; and the overall corrected-time trophy, which the Giraglia's handicap structure keeps genuinely available to the well-sailed smaller yachts — the race's history of modest winners is the reason the mid-fleet sails hard through its second night. The final results and the prize-giving's verdicts land Saturday evening in Genoa.
The season's next starting gun
With Saint-Tropez's week concluding, the Mediterranean circuit moves to Palma, where the Superyacht Cup's 30th edition opens at the Club de Mar on 24 June — five days after Genoa's trophies. For the fleets that race both, it is the season's densest fortnight; for the coasts in between, the same fortnight is the year's best-crowded excuse to be elsewhere, swimming.