This demanding race was designed to simulate the new Olympic offshore doublehanded sailing competition that will take place at the French Olympics in 2024 with a mixed crew of two people. The Panhellenic Cup consisted of a race lasting about 30 hours, on a route of 140 nautical miles in the Saronic Gulf and was the first event of such kind in Greece (perhaps even the Mediterranean). A total of eighteen offshore sailboats took part, most of them with a high standard of racing equipment and with very capable crews.
The start was on Saturday at 10:00am off the Nautical Marina of Kallithea, with partly cloudy skies and moderate westerly wind (Punenti). The fleet set sail with several crossings of the islands in the Saronic Gulf. After that, the boats headed to the next turning mark- known locally as "George" - at a distance of 36.0nm from the start.
The first night found the first boats in N. Modi (Poros) heading to N. Fleves. The northwest wind strengthened to 5+ Beaufort and the fastest boats exceeded 10 knots boatspeed quite easily. After rounding Fleves-Modi, the fleet headed to Faliro to pass through the virtual "gate".
The first boats passed the virtual "gate" at 4:00 AM in the early hours of Sunday, for the last leg of the race Faliro-Fleves-Faliro (23.0 nm). In this coastal part, the intensity of the wind dropped a lot, with the result that the boats slowed down and the crews followed different tactics.
In the end, the J/11S AIOLIA, sailed by the dynamic duo of Spyros Papantoniou & Lefteris Panodimos, managed to pull off a silver medal winning performance!
