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Hosted by the beautiful Yacht Club de Monaco and sponsored by Credit Suisse, this event marks the first regatta of the Swan 45 Class Mediterranean Area Racing Circuit 2004. The Swan 45s will be racing from today until Sunday and Nautor is extremely proud to be a part of this prestigious event.

The start of the Primo Cup will group the Swan 45s with the Farr 40s, whilst other classes competing will include Melges 24, Mumm 30 and Sméralda. Amongst the Swan 45 six-boat fleet will be Leonardo FERRAGAMO'S Cuordileone together with Erik MARIS and his highly competitive Twins, both of whom were major players on the Swan 45 one-design class Mediterranean circuit last year. Twins had an excellent season, competing at some of the biggest events around the Mediterranean, including the Breitling Cup and Copa del Rey, whilst Cuordileone won the Mediterranean Area Championship at the Zegna Trophy.

The Swan 45 Class Mediterranean Circuit 2004 will constitute six events with the Primo Cup forming part of the programme for the first time. Other events to follow will include the Zegna Trophy in May, organised by the Yacht Club Italiano in the beautiful harbour of Portofino and the Mediterranean Area Championship in Porquerolles, France. Swan 45s have also been hand picked to participate at the Sardinia Rolex Cup, another new event on the 2004 calendar, which will be hosted by the world famous Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in Porto Cervo, from the 19th to 27th June.

In addition to all of the above, the coveted Swan 45 Gold Cup, will take place from the 9 - 15 October. This will rally owners from around the world to the beautiful Yacht Club Italiano in Capri, to determine the first ever world champion of this growing class.

The Swan 45 Class has been an enormous success story for Nautor, enhancing the performance capabilities of this well-known yacht manufacturer and pushing the boundaries of dual-purpose yachts. Since its launch in 2001, this new generation of Swan has spearheaded the way forward for Nautor's one-design class racing.

The class is one of a growing number who use the ISAF sailors classification system to regulate the number of professional crew competing. The class has written into it's rules an owner/driver rule whereby the skipper must be classified as group 1. No more than five of the rest of the crew can be classified as group 3.

Other classes who currently use the classification system include the Mumm 30, Farr 40 and the J/105.