Maserati-- 70' Ocean Racing Foiler

From Team Maserati:
Lighter winds caused by a high-pressure weather system on the northern side of the “rhumb line” (the shortest direct route between Los Angeles and Hawaii) have slowed the progress of MaseratiMulti70 and the two American trimarans – Mighty Merloe and Phaedo3 – as the multihull trio scrap it out for the Transpac Race line honours lead.

Giovanni Soldini’s crew on second placed MaseratiMulti70 were the first to gybe earlier today to avoid the effects of the high pressure – a common feature of this classic 2,225-mile open ocean yacht race. The two others later followed suit but the foiling Italian boat has stayed furthest south, away from the lightest winds.

“We have been gybing to keep ourselves in breeze,” Soldini reported from the boat today. “We are in half and half foiling mode because we want to sail deep away from the high pressure. All is good on board and we are enjoying this exciting race.”

The three-way tussle for the overall lead in the 55-boat fleet looks likely to continue all the way to the finish at Diamond Head on Monday. Soldini is believes the wind will increase further along the course but expects to have to stay well south of the rhumb line for the best speed.

At 18.00 Italian time tonight (06.00 in Hawaii) MaseratiMulti70 was in second place on the water, sailing south west (241 degrees) at 17.1 knots with 1268.7 miles to go. Further north, leader Mighty Merloe was on a parallel course and speed, 1248.9 miles from the finish.

 

Maserati is back up to 23 knots, Merlow 22.4, Phaedo 20.9. Maserati is still in second --and gaining.

 

Transpac 2017 https://2017.transpacyc.com/

Tracking: Transpac 2017 https://2017.transpacyc.com/media/watch

 

From Team Maserati:
Out on the Pacific, midway between Los Angeles and Honolulu, the Italian boat is engaged in a three-way ocean dog fight for supremacy against two non-foiling American trimarans – Mighty Merloe and Phaedo3.

Over the last 24 hours, a light wind weather system to the north of the racecourse has forced the boats south of the course rhumb line in search of stronger, steadier breezes.

At 05.00 today (July 9) Italian time (17.00 July 8 in Hawaii), second-placed MaseratiMulti70 remained the furthest south of the three, sailing south west (138 degrees) at 26.8 knots with 1067.2 miles to go to the finish in Honolulu.

Meanwhile, further north, the race leading ORMA 60, Mighty Merloe, and the third placed Phaedo3 were sailing north west at 22.2 knots with 1026.6 and 1067.8 miles to go, respectively.
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As of 8:42 AM Eastern, Maserati is in third place and falling further behind. She hasn't been able to find the wind she needs to foil:
---Mighty Merloe: speed-22.7 knots, DTF= 920.8NM
---Phaedo: speed-27.1 knots, DTF= 962.6NM
---Maserati: speed- 21.1 knots, DTF= 972.7NM

 

As best I can tell the bet on Maserati was that the wind along the rhumb line would die down. It's a bet they lost and ,as a result, they are third behind Merloe(1st) and Phaedo(2nd). I wouldn't say it is over but it sure doesn't look good for Maserati. Marginal to no chance to foil right now......

 

COLLISION! Maserati hit a UFO knocking out her stb rudder-same rudder that was demolished on the way to her first race!
MaseratiMulti70, the Italian high performance offshore flying multihull yacht skippered by Giovanni Soldini, has broken one of its rudders in a high-speed collision with an unidentified floating object, while in second place in the Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Hawaii.

The crew have been able to retrieve the shattered rudder on the back of the starboard (right hand) hull of the trimaran. The other rudders on the port (left hand) and the central hulls are undamaged and the crew are continuing to race towards the finish in Honolulu.

“We were sailing fast at 28 – 30 knots when we heard a big bang,” Soldini reported today. “We immediately stopped the boat and managed to retrieve the rudder blade that was still attached by a retaining line. That was quite a difficult procedure because it was during the night, with lots of wind and waves”.

When the incident happened Soldini’s crew were in second place in the multihull division and in a tight race with Mighty Merloe ahead and Phaedo3 behind. Maserati Multi70 had been sailing well south of the course “rhumb line”– the shortest most direct route between Los Angles and Honolulu – in an attempt to find more wind and to try to avoid the worst of the ocean debris littering the course further north.

“Our choice to stay south was also because we wanted to avoid the areas with more debris,” Soldini explained. “But yesterday, during the day, we saw at least 15 floating objects, including a net, a very big rope line, a buoy with an iron pole, and many smaller buoys. At one point, we caught a large piece of plastic sheeting on one of the rudders.”

The broken rudder is part of a new assembly fitted to the boat before the start of the race, designed to give the crew more control of the boat in fast flying mode.

“The bushes are still intact but the force of the impact completely destroyed the stock and blade,” Soldini said. “The rudder on the other side and the central rudder are OK, but cannot sail too fast on the side without the rudder, as sometimes we lose control and the boat spins out.”

At 16.00 Italian time today, 04.00 in Hawaii, MaseratiMulti70 was third on the water and was sailing south west (230 degrees) at 25.9 knots with 846.7 miles to race. Further north, Mighty Merloe and Phaedo3 were a sailing parallel course with 798.3 and 822.9 miles to go, respectively.
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NOTE-Maserati finished within 12 seconds of Phaedo after 600 miles in the Carribean 600 after losing the same rudder just before the Malta race. However, they were able to remove the stb ama lifting foil and replace it with a "C" foil. This time they'll have to finish w/o the "C" on port tack making sailing with the lifting foil and no rudder T foil a bit dicey......But she'll be able to sail at 100% on stb tack so she still has a chance. Good Luck guys!!!!!

 

Maserati-stb rudder(retracted) during Transpac-before crash-picture from Maserati website:

 

Collision 2: According to Scuttlebutt Phaedo has hit some of the garbage on the Transpac course but with just a kicked up center rudder and no lasting damage. Also, the 100' leadbelly Rio with two rudders lost one after hitting a ufo.... Such a shame the Pacific is so polluted!

 

From Team Maserati:
The crew of the MaseratiMulti70 ocean going flying trimaran are digging deep into their energy reserves as they continue to hurtle across the Pacific towards Hawaii in the Transpac Race.

Despite having had their starboard rudder destroyed by a collision with an unidentified floating object yesterday, the sailors have been pushing the boat relentlessly to stay in contention with the leading two trimarans – the 60-foot Mighty Merloe and the 70-foot Phaedo3.

In the absence of the missing rudder the crew have had to rely on solely on the central rudder for steerage when sailing on port gybe. Nevertheless, they have been sailing downwind at speeds approaching 30 knots at times in the final section of the 2,225-mile race to Honolulu’s Diamond Head in Hawaii.

At 05.00 Italian time this morning MaseratiMulti70 was third in the multihull division travelling almost exactly due west at 28.9 knots with 564.4.3 miles to go. Mighty Merloe and Phaedo3 were on similar courses with 521.2 and 528.4 miles to go, respectively.

 

From Scuttlebutt:
Transpac Race: The Records are Nervous >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2017/07/10/transpac-race-records-nervous/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Scuttlebutt%204871%20-%20July%2011%202017&utm_content=Scuttlebutt%204871%20-%20July%2011%202017+CID_e9e0de55dd73c4e0aed00532f02ef619&utm_source=Email%20Newsletter&utm_term=Read%20on#more

(July 10, 2017) – The ‘halfway to Hawaii’ milestone is that momentous occasion during the Transpac race when you have gone through the tough miles, but when looking around, realize how long the second half of the race can be if things go pear-shaped.

“We scooted through the midpoint this morning,” reported Wayne Zittel from the Santa Cruz 50 Hula Girl. “We are farther from any speck of dry land than you can get anywhere else on the planet. We figure the closet people to us right now (excluding the other racers) are on the International Space Station some 270 miles above us.”

But for the lead multihulls, they are closer to Mai Tais as they make their approach to the Diamond Head finish line off Honolulu. The four-hour delay on the tracker gets removed when a boat is within 100nm which happened today for leader ORMA 60 Mighty Merloe. After just four days since their start on July 6, the multihull race record set by Bruno Peyron in 1997 on Explorer of 05:09:18:26 is set to be exploded.

“I can’t stop thinking about how lucky we are to be out here doing what we’re doing,” reports Will Suto from onboard Mighty Merloe. “The ocean and sky are beautiful. Last night the sun set on our bow and the moon rose on our stern. The colors at dusk out here are unlike any other place I’ve been.”

But not all is ideal as the team deals with marine debris. “Today I had to crawl out onto the sterns of both the starboard and port amas and dangle off the very back to clear chunks of polypropylene fishing net from in between the top of the rudders and the hull,” said Suto. “We had to keep going at full speed to keep the hull out of the water. If we had touched down the force of the water would have dragged me off. I was tied to the boat three different ways, but it was still a nice moment of clarity.”

While the team is doing well, Suto reports they are eager to finish. “It is a truly fine crew …fast, calm, and all with the good humor requisite to live stacked like sardines inside a carbon fiber tube. On that note, it is a good thing this boat is so fast, because the interior is getting a bit fetid.”

Also expected to explode is the outright monohull race record set in 2009 by Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo of 05:14:36:20. The 100-foot Comanche, skippered by Ken Read, reports their current ETA as tomorrow by 15:30 (Hawaii time), well before the deadline of early on July 12. But Read knows, with so much trash in the water, it can all end in an instant.

“We’ve had a few close calls but so far have avoided the floating debris,” said Read. “Sad but true that modern sailing has to deal with obstacles more and more these days. This in a way is a game of Russian roulette offshore especially with these modern boats that go so fast you don’t have time to avoid, particularly with the multiple appendages that increase the chances of damage.”

 

Maserati is third but doing only 18 knots while the other two boats are both doing about 25. Too much distance to make up to even beat Phaedo. I imagine it is profoundly disappointing to Team Maserati but they've given it hell doing their best.....

 

The crew on Mighty Merloe surely have this in the bag now. Nice to see that the best ORMA 60 of it's generation is still competitive with the later MOD70's.

 

Maserati third-still inside the old record---
Giovanni Soldini and his crew crossed the finish line at Diamond Head off Honolulu at 11.18 and 55 seconds Italian time today, July 11 (23.18 and 55 seconds July 10 in Hawaii) – four days, 12 hours, 48 minutes and 55 seconds after leaving Los Angeles on Thursday July 6.

MaseratiMulti70 finished the 2,225-mile race in third place.

For the majority of the crossing from Los Angeles the Italian trimaran had been involved in a close three-way battle for the lead with the two American multihulls, Phaedo3 and Mighty Merloe. However, a collision with an unidentified floating object on Sunday destroyed their starboard rudder and effectively put paid to their chances of challenging for the lead.

Conditions throughout the open ocean race were generally favourable for fast sailing and Mighty Merloe, Phaedo3 and MaseratiMulti70 all reached Honolulu well inside the previous record time of five days, nine hours, 18 minutes and 26 seconds, set by Bruno Peyron’s French 86-foot catamaran Explorer in 1997.

 

Maserati Foil System(and Fire Arrow Foil System)---I'm still convinced that the Maserati foil system is the best full flying configuration for large trimarans(and the Fire Arrow System for small sport tris). It would be nice to see the system used on a large tri specifically designed from scratch for it rather than a conversion of an existing tri like Maserati where compromises had to be made. If I'm right we may all get to see such a system when Gitana 17 is finally launched on the 16th. The renders of her foil system are not accurate but we won't know until launch what has been added. One thing we do know now is that Guillaume Verdier designed the innovative Maserati foil system and also designed the new 100' Gitana from scratch to fly. What we don't know ,for sure, is whether or not the new boat will have a lifting foil on her daggerboard or not-and that is a big deal-at least to me.
Tough break for Team Maserati in the Transpac-especially losing the same rudder she lost on the way to Malta. The problem of junk in the ocean is the single biggest obstacle to large ocean racing foilers as well as being a tragedy for marine life and anyone who sails anything on the ocean.
Before too long(I hope) advanced electronics will be able to spot large objects just under the surface in time for a high speed boat to avoid them. Advances like that will be key to the continued use of ocean racing hydrofoils.

 

Maserati damaged rudder---


Rudder before damage: