“I am super happy it was a challenging regatta. With such strong opponents and such similar boats you know that if you make a mistake you pay for it all, we made one at the start, overestimating the thermal around Lanzarote, but then we didn’t make any more mistakes”. From Grenada, in the Caribbean, Giovanni Soldini retraces the feat that led Maserati Multi70 to win the Line Honours of the prestigious RORC Transatlantic Race and set a new speed record with a time of 5 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 26 seconds. “The boat has made huge strides forward and in these conditions it amply demonstrated this,” continued Soldini, “the opponents were unable to keep up the pace and at one point got lost. We continued to sail our course as we imagined it, being very careful at the angles, and we also remained focused when tackling the obstacles.”
Obstacles that, about halfway through the course, came up in particular when, following the breakage of a stopper, the centreboard slipped off its seat and broke through the hull, and the trimaran took on two tonnes of water in the watertight compartment area, the equivalent of a third of its weight: “it’s true, we had this big problem with the centreboard. We sailed at full speed and the ballast clearly put a strain on the trimaran, but Maserati Multi70‘s is a very special team because all the crew works in the boatyard and takes care of the boat all year round, my companions know the boat very well and when there is a problem to solve they know what they are doing.
All in all, we have reached a really good shape, and the boat has shown all its power and endurance, so I would like to thank and share this success also with the whole team of Maserati engineers and with John Elkann, in memory, twenty years after his death, of Avvocato Agnelli, a passionate forerunner of this sport”.
On board Maserati Multi70 with Giovanni Soldini were the six sailors and mates: Guido Broggi (ITA), Oliver Herrera Perez (ESP), Francesco Malingri (ITA), Francesco Pedol (ITA), Matteo Soldini (ITA) and Lucas Valenza-Troubat (FRA).
Photo © RORC / Arthur Daniel
