We are now just hours away from the start of the 52nd edition of the Transpacific Yacht Race (Transpac), which for the multihull class will kick off on Saturday, July 1 at 11:55 a.m. local time (18:55 UTC; 20:55 Italian time) from Pt. Fermin, Los Angeles, charting a 2225-mile course to the finish line off Diamond Head, Honolulu, Hawaii. The multihulls will close out the fleet of about sixty boats, which started in stages in recent days.
Giovanni Soldini, on the starting line together with the crew of Maserati Multi70, which counts Guido Broggi (ITA), Oliver Herrera Perez (ESP), Francesco Malingri (ITA), Francesco Pedol (ITA), Matteo Soldini (ITA) and Lucas Valenza-Troubat (FRA), will challenge the two American MOD 70s Argo, skippered by Jason Carroll and navigator Brian Thompson, and Orion, skippered by Justin Shaffer.
Due to a customs problem, the support container on which the set of racing sails and flying appendages are traveling has not yet landed in Los Angeles, and the Maserati Multi70 team has not been able to reconfigure the trim for the sporting challenge. For this regatta therefore Maserati Multi70 will sail in non-flying mode.
“The forecast,” comments Giovanni Soldini, “confirms a fairly classic situation with light and variable wind at the start at least until after Catalina Island. But after the first 36 hours across with winds around 20 knots, we should be able to engage a more stable trade wind from the north. In the next few hours the wind will turn from the east and we will start to drop: there it will be a matter of finding the right spot to gybe because around the high pressure the wind has a tendency to shift from east to southeast. At that point we’ll tack left to Hawaii.”
Transpac is the most relevant offshore race in the Pacific, and among its obstacles is its proximity to the Pacific trash vortex, the so-called plastic island, which for sailors means high risk of collisions.
Maserati Multi70, participating in this competition for the third time after the 2017 and 2019 editions, is the only boat in the race flying the Italian flag.
Photo © Francesca Sanlorenzo
