RORC Transatlantic Race – Maserati Multi70 now 1,000 miles off Grenada

by maserati.soldini.it on 1 Dec 2016 Now at the 22nd parallel north, Maserati Multi70 continues her race W/SW to the finish-line off Grenada, having spent the last 12 hours making an impressive average speed of 30 knots with peaks of 40, thanks to the L-foil and T-foil rudder on her port side. The Italian trimaran has another 1,071 nautical miles of the race left and is expected to make landfall this weekend.

Maserati Multi70 is making her way down towards Grenada, clocking up the miles in E/NE winds of between 15 and 20 knots. She and the American trimaran, Phaedo3, which is leading the race 820 miles from the finish, are following the clockwise flow of the Trade Winds around the mid-Atlantic high pressure area. Both are making speeds of between 17 and 20 knots, and are lying 250 miles apart (as of 12.00 GMT).

In this morning’s link, Giovanni Soldini analysed the progress of the race as follows: «Morale is high aboard even though the situation is pretty clear now and there’s nothing we can do about it. Phaedo3 has built up an enormous lead that will extend still further over the coming hours. It’s a question of wind angles: the further you go west, the more the wind has an easterly component and so is more favourable for sailing to Grenada. That means Phaedo3’s position puts her at an advantage: she just has to make straight for the final waypoint but anyone behind her, like ourselves, has to gybe to make headway west.

'We tried flying downwind in a 14/15-knot wind and the results were encouraging. We are convinced that performance is superior even in these conditions. We’re continuing to record and analyse the data to establish some solid points of reference as there are so many different variables and adjustments. We’re trying to build up experience and get it recorded: it’s like trying to write a giant instruction manual'.

'Otherwise all is well aboard apart from our regrets about not making the right choice at the start of the race which compromised our chance of pitting ourselves against Phaedo3 up close'.

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 five days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and three seconds.