Having smashed countless records on race tracks around the world during its motorsport career, Maserati is now taking to the high seas to continue its record-breaking ways under sail. A new racing yacht, called Maserati is bidding to break a whole list of trans-Atlantic race records.
Giovanni Soldini and his team of nine sailors will next year sail the yacht Maserati in an attempt to break the Cadiz-San Salvador (Bahamas), Miami-New York and New York-Lizard Point (UK) records. The three ocean course attempts will be monitored by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the international body certifying the record times on the historic clipper routes.
While the principal partner for the challenge is Maserati, whose name has been given to the boat, the challenge is co-sponsored by the Swiss bank BSI (Generali Group) and Generali itself. Maserati will fly the pennant of the Yacht Club Italiano, which was founded in 1879 and is the oldest sailing club in the Mediterranean Sea. Vodafone Italia and Boero Bartolomeo S.p.A. will be official suppliers to the challenge, with Bulgari as the Official Time Keeper.
"I am happy that two major companies have decided to approach the world of ocean sailing by supporting this important Italian enterprise", said Giovanni Soldini, who already has two circumnavigations and over 30 Atlantic crossings to his name. "We intend to be the first Italian boat to set a record on an official WSSRC route and breaking the North Atlantic record has always been one of my life’s dreams."
Maserati is a VOR 70 that participated in the 2008-2009 round-the-world race. An ultra high-tech boat of over 20 metres, it makes a case to be the world's fastest single-hull yacht thanks to a carbon-fibre mast more than 30 metres high, a canting keel, mobile water ballast tanks, forward canard fins, its extremely sleek waterlines and its structures in composite materials.
As Soldini explains: "After three months in dry dock, Maserati is 10 per cent lighter and more powerful, with a greater self-righting capacity. We have worked to obtain a more stern-heavy configuration, thus making Maserati particularly well-suited to sailing at higher speeds."
The schedule of records presents approximate dates, bearing in mind each voyage has to start with ideal meteorological conditions, which will be decided at the last moment by a team of meteorologists. If conditions are favourable, Giovanni Soldini and Maserati will also attempt to break the record for the longest distance covered by a single-hull yacht in a 24-hour period.
• January 2012: Cadiz-San Salvador (Bahamas) – 3,884 miles (no time reference to beat: absolute record held by Franck Cammas, trimaran Groupama, May 2007).
• March 2012: Miami-New York – 947 miles (no time reference to beat: absolute record held by Frank Cammas, trimaran Groupama, June 2007).
• April 2012: New York-Lizard Point (UK) – 2,925 miles (record to beat 6 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes, 39 seconds set by Robert Miller aboard the monohull Mari Cha IV, October 2003; average speed of 18.5 knots).
The schedule sees Maserati put into the water in November 2011. November and December 2011 will be devoted to fine-tuning the boat and selecting and training the crew.