Mari Cha goes amber

Super maxi schooner flexing her muscles awaiting Transat record attempt

Robert Miller's 140ft schooner Mari Cha IV is set to leave the Newport Shipyard in Newport, Rhode Island tonight, bound for New York where she will remain on standby awaiting the right weather window to leave on an attempt to win back 'her' west to east monohull transatlantic record, between New York and the Lizard.

"We’re standing by as we speak," racing skipper Mike Sanderson told The Daily Sail last night. "The boat is ready to go, the sails are all back on, we’ve loaded food, the boat is in great shape."

At present the weather window hasn't opened, although it is looking more promising from Sunday on, says Sanderson. And they should know. Studying the weather on behalf of the team is not just the legendary Mike Quilter, but also Team New Zealand's Roger Badham and top French meteorologist Pierre Lasnier.

"We’ll leave on anything which we think we can break the record in," says Sanderson. "We’ve done runs which have the boat doing the trip in a bit over six days and that’s running actual VPPs. But the reality is our aim is to beat 8 day 20 hours. That is the bottom line." The current west to east monohull transatlantic record holder is Bernard Stamm's Open 60 Bobst Group-Armor Lux. With the correct weather and barring breakage, Mari Cha IV, with more than twice the length of Stamm's Around Alone winner, should romp it - in theory.

Sanderson is still keen on lightening the boat as much as possible and this may mean parring back crew numbers to possibly as few as 20. "The boat is incredibly easily driven. It doesn’t involve a whole heap of sail changes," he says. "The sails have big wide ranges and it is very easy to keep the boat sitting on 18-25 knots. So we’ll try and keep the boat as light as possible for sure."

To read more about Mari Cha IV, see our review here. Part One and Part Two