Marseille One Design Regatta - Armin Strom Sailing Team to race GC32

by Armin Strom Sailing Team on 11 Sep 2014 Italian-Swiss skipper Flavio Marazzi and his Armin Strom Sailing Team return to competition this week in the second round of the GC32 circuit. The helmsman arrives at the Marseille One Design Regatta with his ultramodern and blisteringly fast catamaran which literally flies over the water thanks to a combination of L-foils and T-rudders.

This is the first outing for the Marseille One Design event. Flavio Marazzi himself has competed in four Olympics in the Star class while his team, which is sponsored by the prestige Swiss watch manufacture, also numbers Spaniard Javier de la Plaza, world champion in the Olympic 49er class, Uruguayan Diego Stefani, who has been a mainstay of the Armin Strom team since the outset, and expert French match racer Nicolas Heintz.

In terms of average age, the Armin Strom Sailing Team is probably the oldest competing but the plus side of this means it is both solid and strong.

'We bring a huge amount of experience to the boat in this regatta. Our goal is to work tightly together and improve fast so that we can stay one step ahead of our rivals. We want to win this competition!' declared skipper Flavio Marazzi. The Armin Strom Sailing Team will be focusing on beating the Dutch Spax Solutions, Team Magic Marine with professional skipper Mischa Heemskerk and, naturally enough, Team GDF Suez 32, with two-time America’s Cup helmsman Sebastian Col which will probably prove the toughest to tackle.

After the most recent technical upgrade of the year, the GC32s competing at Marseille will be sporting the latest version of the carbon T-configuration rudders and J-profile principle lifting foils. These appendages will lift the catamaran 1.5 metres out of the water and allow it hit very high speeds as it will be literally air-borne almost parallel to the surface. In July 2014, in fact, the Armin Storm-sponsored CG 32 cat made an incredibly 37.5 knots (around 70 km/h) in training on Lake Garda. When asked whether speeds of 40 knots (75 km/h) were feasible, two-time America’s Cup helmsman Sebastian Col confided: 'It certainly is possible. I believe that we might even see it at Marseille even though the sea isn’t as dead calm as a lake.'