RORC Transatlantic Race – Maserati Multi70 now 660 miles from finish

by studio-imagina.it on 2 Dec 2016 Maserati Multi70 is now on her seventh day of racing and is expected to sail across the RORC Transatlantic Race finish-line and into Port Louis Marina in Grenada, sometime between tomorrow evening and Sunday morning (Italian time). The shore team and organisers are already in situ, preparing a warm welcome for the crews of the two trimarans who will be exhausted after racing across the ocean at high speeds for such an extended period.

Phaedo3 should make landfall tomorrow and has a 397-nautical mile lead over Maserati Multi70 at the front of the fleet (as of 12.00 GMT). As Giovanni Soldini explained yesterday it will be difficult for the Italian boat to bridge the gap with the American multi over the coming hours because both MOD70s are making the same speeds of around 20/22 knots in the same winds.

Maserati Multi70 is now 660 nautical miles off Grenada and, given her average speeds and current weather pattern, is expected to cross the finish-line 24 hours after the US trimaran.

Aboard the team is taking stock of the race and the ocean-going experience. As Giovanni Soldini reflected this morning:

'Conditions have been fantastic over the last 24 hours: we managed to find just the right adjustments to fly downwind and the results are surprising.

We're able to get amazing angles. Maserati Multi70 takes off and then stabilises at a 140° angle to the real wind. She starts to accelerates resting only on her L-foil, the weight-bearing surface of the T-foil rudder and the wing we have on the centreboard. It's completely unprecedented: we're able to bear away at 10° more and make two knots more with the L-foil. We're definitely on the right path!

This Ocean hai given us a super experience. We’re beginning to feel less like we’re experimenting and more at ease in getting the most from the appendages that make Maserati Multi70 a flying trimaran'.

Now on its third outing, the RORC Transatlantic Race is competed over a 2,865-nautical mile route from Lanzarote (Canary Islands) to Grenada (the Caribbean). A total of 14 boats are racing in three classes this year: IRC, Class 40 and MOCRA Multihull. The current multihull record was set by the trimaran Phaedo3 last year in a time of 5 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 3 sec.