The countdown to the Rolex Middle Sea Race has begun. The Maserati Multi70 Team is back on the water and ready to head to Malta. On Saturday October 22, a volley of cannon shots from the fortress in La Valletta will signal the start of the 37th edition of this classic Mediterranean offshore event first raced in 1968.
Casting off with the MOD70 Maserati Multi70 will be a fleet of 116 boats split into six categories and watched by hundreds of spectators.The race, organized by the Royal Malta Yacht Club, is one of the most crowded in this fall’s calendar. The 608-mile route starts and finishes from the island of Malta and incorporates an anticlockwise circumnavigation of Sicily and a passage through the Strait of Messina with the Aeolian and Egadi Islands, Pantelleria and Lampedusa to port.
Particularly this season, the route is anything but straightforward. “The race is technically very varied from a weather perspective which demands a huge effort and a lot of strategizing,” confirms Soldini. “The passage through the Strait and then the run back to Malta are the best bits. There are many boats and big racers competing: it’ll be an excellent opportunity to test ourselves and to improve”.
After the MOD 70 Oman Sail and Concise have withdrawn, on the starting line Maserati Multi70 will face also Phaedo3, the American MOD70 holder of important recors and winner of just as many regattas (Antigua-Newport, Plymouth-La Rochelle, Cowes- St Malo, Fastnet, Rorc Caribbean 600 e Rorc Transatlantic).
The days she spent in the yard at La Spezia allowed the team to greatly boost the reliability of Maserati Multi70’s various systems, although experimentation aboard will be ongoing: the boat will be competing in the Rolex Middle Sea Race with an L-foil one side and a more traditional foil on the other.
credit@Tiziano Canu
