Skip to content

Maserati Sailing at Record-Setting Pace

Giovanni Soldini broke his first international sailing record at 23. But despite a lifetime of achievements he’s probably most famous for rescuing Isabelle Autissier in the Southern Ocean during the 1998-99 Around Alone race.

© 2013 Tommaso Ausili / Maserati

With any luck, Italian sailing legend Giovanni Soldini will be paying a visit to San Francisco Bay before March 1 — via the most difficult route we can think of. He and an international crew of eight men left New York on New Year’s Eve day aboard the VOR 70 Maserati on a nonstop, 13,000-mile sprint that will take them south to Cape Horn, then north to the Golden Gate. Their goal is to break the Clipper Challenge Cup record of 57d, 3h, 2m, set in 1998 by Yves Parlier and his crew aboard Aquitaine Innovations. Previous to a flurry of new records and failed attempts between the mid-’80s and late ‘90s, the record set by the famous three-master Flying Cloud (89d, 8h) in 1854 stood for more than 130 years.

So far, Soldini’s record attempt appears to be going well, with Maserati now approaching the Equator. The sole American on Soldini’s team, Ryan Breymaier, reported this morning: “So we blasted straight through the tradewinds in good time. It was not your typical downwind slide like in the ARC brochure; more of a firehose reach as we crossed at a 90 degree angle.

“As I write this, we are about 160 miles from the equator. We just sailed directly out of perfect 20-knot trades into a 25-knot squall with a 40-degree forward windshift. Boris [Herrmann] says ‘Oh s**t, welcome to the doldrums.’ And he was right. The wind now fluctuates between 9 and 14, but at least we have one thing going for us: there is still wind.”

Breymaier went on to report that GRIB files currently show no wind holes ahead, so they may squeak through the equatorial doldrums without coming to a grinding stop. And the long-term forecast looks favorable also. “It’s looking good though, with no major stoppages before the Falklands, just a super wet boat.” 

A rough estimate made by the Latitude 38 supercomputer tells us that Maserati is currently moving at a record-setting pace. That said, they still have 10,000 cold, wet miles left to go.

Much of the NY-to-SF route is likely to be cold, wet, and nasty. But what an adventure!

© Ryan Breymaier

Whenever they arrive, though, we expect the Bay Area sailing community will give Soldini and crew a very warm welcome, as was the case when Isabelle Autissier broke the record in 1994, and when Parlier broke it four years later.

Leave a Comment




For three long days, Bernard Stamm has been running his IMOCA 60 Cheminées Poujoulat on emergency energy rations after a UFO disabled both of his hydrogenerators.