© Michele Sighel
Press release n. 9 – New York-San Francisco Record
Milano, January 18th 2013
Giovanni and his team are 920 miles fromCape Horn
Maserati is expecting tough conditions in the passage: opposite winds up to 35 knots.
18 days after the departure from New York, Maserati is sailing along the South Patagonian coast (precisely on San Jorge Gulf’s latitude) and is getting closer to the legendary Cape Horn (920 miles away at 12.00am update, Italian time). Giovanni Soldini and his team are expected to round it around on January 22nd.
“At the moment we are sailing in a windless area” says Giovanni from Maserati. “We decided to keep the anticyclone on our right side as the other way round was too risky. We’ve just turned towards the South and we are sailing at 10 knots with 7-8 knots of breeze. In the next hours the wind is expected to increase little by little. We still do not know if we will keep the Falkland Islands on our right or leftside. We will do our best to keep them on the left side in order to reduce the miles with westerly winds. In this way, we will then have to decide if we pass in or out the Strait of Le Maire. Everything depends on the high pressure position. Weather models change every six hours and the situation develops continuously. Moreover, as usual, American and European models are conflicting.
Anyway, it seems realistic that we will have a lot of wind (around 35 knots) during the passage through Cape Horn. The question is: will it come from the Northwest or the West? We’ll see. The other certain information we have is that there will be many icebergs and this is quite strange. Up to four years ago it would have been unimaginable to find icebergs at Cape Horn in this season. On board everything is fine, the spirits are high, the team isgreat”.
Every meteorological choice is taken in complete autonomy on board Maserati. There are no external routers. The team collects all the weather data through Commanders’ Weather.
Maserati has already run 6000 miles (over 13.225) in 18 days at an average speed of 14,2 knots.
The speed record in the monohull category belongs to Yves Parlier who run the Golden Route in 57 days, 3 hours aboard Aquitaine Innovations in 1998.
Updates with videos and images from the boat and hourly updated tracker with Maserati’s position can be found at www.maserati.soldini.it () and social networks: Facebook (Giovanni Soldini Pagina Ufficiale, more than 18.000 friends; RyanBreymaier) and Twitter (@giovannisoldini, more than 98.000 followers; @ryanbreymaier).
NEW YORK – SAN FRANCISCO RECORD STORY
The 13225 nautical miles that separate New York from San Francisco via Cape Horn, are an historic route, widely travelled by clippers that were involved in the goldrush starting from the second half of 1800. The best result of the time was set in 1854 by Flying Cloud, exceptional vessel from the Boston shipyards, that reached San Francisco in 89 days and 21 hours, a record that stood for more than 130 years.
After several attempts by many boats, the 60-foot Thursday’s Child of Warren Luhrs arrived in San Francisco after 80 days and 20 hours in 1989. In 1994, Isabelle Autissier aboard Ecureuil Poitou took 62 days and 5 hours. Then, in 1998, Yves Parlier on board Aquitaine Innovations has dropped to 57 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes. This is the reference record for Giovanni Soldini and his crew who will try to beat it aboard the VOR70 Maserati, from the second half of December 2012.
The overall record in the multihull category belongs to Lionel Lemonchois that made thejourney in 43 days and 38 minutes aboard Gitana 13 in 2008.
The challenge is being sponsored by Maserati as main partner and inspiration for the boat’s name, by the Swiss bank BSI (Generali Group) and by Generali itself as co-sponsor.
