“We have decided to abandon our North Atlantic record attempt.” Late yesterday, Giovanni Soldini and his nine-strong crew announced from Maserati that the New York-Lizard Point Atlantic record was now definitely beyond the realms of possibility.
“Unfortunately, the cold front we’d been following since the start suddenly speeded up and then passed us out. Despite our best efforts, we ended up stuck in a zone with very little wind. We tried to keep sailing in this north-westerly for a few hours but we quickly realised we just wouldn’t be able to do it. All the weather models we downloaded and the simulations we ran confirmed our suspicions. Clearly, we are disappointed, we really gave it our all and it didn’t go as we’d hoped, but at sea, we are never the ones in control. Now we’re on a course for the Azores for a short technical stop-off that will give us the chance to stock up on provisions as we’ve run short. After that, we’ll take Maserati back to Italy.”
Maserati cast off from New York at 00:27:20 GMT on October 17th and would have had to do the 2,880-mile crossing between Ambrose Light and Lizard Point on the westernmost tip of England in under 6 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes and 39 seconds to beat the record held by the 140’ maxi yacht Mari Cha IV.
From
Maserati Soldini
