Maserati Aims for Record Finish
Imagine how frustrating it would be to have raced against the clock at a record-breaking pace all the way from New York, south around Cape Horn, then north to California, only to be slowed down by flukey winds less than 150 miles from the finish line. That’s the story aboard Giovanni Soldini’s VOR 70 Maserati this morning, as the legendary Italian ocean racer and his international crew of eight men approach San Francisco Bay. Despite the recent slowdown, they are poised to smash the New York-to-San Francisco monohull sailing record, set by Yves Parlier on Aquitaine Innovations in 1998 (57d 3h), by roughly 10 days.
Barring some sort of last-minute disaster, they will actually break two records: The first being The World Sailing Speed Record Council’s N.Y.-to-S.F. record (from Ambrose Light, at the entrance to New York Harbor, to the Golden Gate Bridge), and the second being the Manhattan Sailing Club’s Clipper Challenge Cup (from a line between Manhattan’s North Cove Marina and the Statue of Liberty to a line between San Francisco Bay’s Alcatraz Island and Pier 39 Marina).
As detailed in our background article in the current edition of Latitude 38, the original record was set back in the Gold Rush era of the mid-1800s by the three-masted clipper ship Flying Cloud. Her time of 89 days stood for 135 years, until Warren Luhrs and a crew of two shaved almost eight days off the record in 1989 aboard the highly innovative water-ballasted sloop Thursday’s Child.
Although Soldini has a lifetime of offshore racing under his belt, he is best known for his dramatic Southern Ocean rescue of French singlehander Isabelle Autissier during the 1998-’99 Around Alone race, for which he became an international hero. Previously, Autissier had set a new N.Y.-to-S.F. record in 1994 aboard the then-radical Open 60 Ecureuil Poitou Charentes II.
At this writing, Maserati is expected to arrive at Pier 39 in the wee hours of Saturday morning. But if it’s after first light we hope many Bay Area sailors will sail out and help us welcome this sleek 70-footer to the Bay. The best source for updates is the website, where you’ll find a chartlet with transponder plots that are updated hourly. Benvenuto Giovanni!