Gunboat at the Multihull Cup 2026
Port Adriano wakes slowly in late September. The water inside the marina is still, the masts are bare, and the only sound is the clink of a halyard somewhere down the pontoon. Then five crews start moving, and the quiet ends.
The Multihull Cup turned ten this year. Eight editions, one harbour on the south-west coast of Mallorca, and a fleet of performance multihulls that has grown from a handful of friends into something that still calls itself a family. Gunboat presented the opening day of racing, Friday 25 September, and two Gunboats were on the start line.
RACE DAY 1 BY GUNBOAT
A Gunboat won the Gunboat day. Highland Fling XVIII, the Gunboat 80, led the fleet around 18.5 miles of coastline in 2 hours 29 minutes and 32 seconds, first across the line and first after ORCmh correction. It began in almost nothing. Light air, flat light on the water, five boats hunting for pressure offshore and watching each other do it. By the afternoon the breeze had filled in enough for the 80 to lift a hull and hold it there.
Nothing about this fleet is casual once the gun goes. Crews change gears on multihulls that punish a late call, bow teams work the hoists clean, tacticians pick a side and live with it. On Saturday, second to fourth in one race was settled by fourteen seconds. On Sunday, thirteen seconds separated the first two boats. The title itself came down to a single point.
These are not boats being taken for a sail. They are being raced, hard, by people who have spent the year measuring themselves against each other. Benoit Lebizay handed over the trophy that evening, on the dock, with the boats still warm from the day.
TWO GUNBOATS, TWO DIFFERENT LIVES
Highland Fling and Layla came to Port Adriano from opposite ends of the same idea. The 80 is set up for racing, sharp and stripped for it. Layla is a Gunboat 72 with a flybridge, a boat her owners live aboard and cruise, carrying a bigger headsail and an A1 she used on the Friday course.
She raced anyway, and she raced well: second in one of Saturday's windward-leewards, third on Sunday, never far off boats built to beat her. Her tactician Brian Thompson put it plainly during the week: Layla is designed as a cruising boat with the ability to go racing, not the other way round. That sentence is close to the whole point. These are boats people sail to places, anchor off islands, eat dinner on. For three days in September they line up against each other instead.
ASHORE
Then the boats come in, and the whole thing softens. On the Friday, Gunboat laid on paella on the quay, long tables set out facing the hulls, crews arriving in salt-stiff shirts with a drink in hand and a mark rounding to argue about. Owners, bowmen, partners, children, all at the same tables.
Nobody stays on their own boat here. Saturday's dinner ran late under the moon, with the fleet moored a few metres away. On the Sunday, one owner opened his villa to everyone for sundowners, rivals included. Another handed a magnum of champagne to the newcomer in the fleet, a 60-footer racing for the first time in her life, simply to welcome him in. Every boat went home with something made for the tenth anniversary.
The regatta heard its first ever protest this year. By dinner, the two crews involved were sitting at the same table. That is the strange arithmetic of this event. Hard racing all day, no distance kept at night.
THE HORIZON
Allegra took the 2026 title, a fourth win and the first successful defence in the event's history. Gaea finished second, Highland Fling third by a single point, Layla fourth. One point, after three days and four races. That is how close this fleet has become. The boats left on the Monday, one by one, back to the places they came from.
The next Multihull Cup runs at Port Adriano from 23 to 26 September 2027. There will be more Gunboats on that start line.
Photos: @SAILING ENERGY
