Giovanni Soldini and Maserati Multi 70’s Team are ready for the 41st edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, organized by the Royal Malta Yacht Club, that will start tomorrow, Saturday October 17th from Valletta, Malta.
The first group of the 57 boats entering the race, 11 of which are Italian, will set sail tomorrow at 11.00 local time (9.00 UTC); the last group to start will be the multihulls, among which is Maserati Multi 70. For this edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, weather forecast calls for light winds, mostly north-westerly, around 9-10 knots. Soldini notes: «It seems like it’s going to be a slow race, but we will give our best as always!»
In the multihulls category, Maserati Multi 70’s Team will challenge five competitors. Their direct rival is MOD 70 Mana (former Spindrift), skippered by Brian Thompson. Soldini comments: «Thompson is an excellent skipper. We already raced against him many times, both aboard Phaedo3 and, more recently, aboard Argo: it’s going to be a great race».
Alongside the two MOD 70s, there will be three more trimarans: Antoine Rabaste’s 80’ Ultim’Edition 2, already challenged by the Italian Team during the Cape2Rio 2020 under the name LoveWater; the 63’ Shockwave, skippered by Jeff Mearing and Scott Klodowski; the Multi 50 Primonial, skippered by Sébastien Rogues, winner of the third place at the 2019 Transat Jacques Vabre.
Finally, there will also be a catamaran in the multihulls category, the Italian Outremer 55 Light Asia’, skippered by Marcello Patrizi.
Aboard the Italian trimaran, alongside Giovanni Soldini, there will be a 7-man crew: Matteo Soldini and Oliver Herrera Perez, part of Maserati Multi 70’s Team; back on board Vittorio Bissaro, who already participated in many races with the Team, including the 2018 Rolex Middle Sea Race; also coming back, after the Cape2Rio 2020, John Elkann and Pierre Laurent Boullais; finally two more sailors, on board for the first time, Lorenzo Bressani, with 11 World titles, 8 European titles and 16 Italian titles to his name, and Cédric Bader, a young sailor who races in many classes, including Formula 18 and Nacra 17.
