Maserati Multi 70 and Giovanni Soldini conquered the record on the Fastnet original course: 23 hours, 51 minutes and 16 seconds for an average speed of 24.94 knots. The previous record of 25 hours, 4 minutes and 18 seconds, was set by Peter Cunningham’s MOD 70 PowerPlay just a month ago. The record is pending the World Sailing Speed Record Council’s ratification.
The modified MOD70 trimaran crossed the starting line off Cowes on May 7th at 19:22:55 GMT heading west. The first part in the Solent was slow, but shortly after the wind got stronger.
“It was tough, sailing to Lizard Point the wind was very strong: we sailed with average speeds of 34-35 knots for a few hours and it was great,” said Soldini. “From there we sailed on a beam reach to the Fastnet with 25-30 knots of wind. This morning we passed the Fastnet and while we were sailing back towards the finish line we caught some unexpected light winds, but we built up a nice advantage during the night. We’re very happy, this window was not perfect, but we wanted to try anyway and we did it!”
Aboard Maserati Multi 70 with Giovanni Soldini: Guido Broggi, Carlos Hernandez Robayna, Oliver Herrera Perez, Gerardo Siciliano, and Matteo Soldini.
“The other keystone for this success was the right side rudder,” shared Soldini. “For some time now, we’ve been working with the engineers from the Maserati Innovation Lab to try to improve the efficiency of the rudders that always give us problems at high speeds. It’s also and especially thanks to the studies we did together on the kinematics that we made some changes to the rudder’s profile, as suggested by designer Guillaume Verdier.
“We tested the rudder for the first time during this record and we can say it passed the tests with flying colours! The first leg between the Solent and the Fastnet was very fast, we kept high average speeds very easily precisely because of the new rudder: it’s clearly in the first half of the route on port tack that we beat the record. Now we will definitively change both rudders and we can’t wait to keep working with the Maserati Innovation Lab to achieve even better results!”
For Soldini and his crew it’s the third record conquered in the English Channel, after the Plymouth-La Rochelle (12 hours, 15 minutes, 21 seconds) and the Cowes-Dinard (4 hours, 30 minutes, 49 seconds).
