The return of Soldini

We speak to the former Around Alone winner and trimaran sailor about his move into the Class 40

Giovanni Soldini is something of a unique entity - an offshore sailor who, at one point at least, was a household name in his native Italy. This came about during and subsequent to the 1998-1999 Around Alone race (now the Velux 5 Oceans), an event that he won, but during which he also carried out a valiant mid-Southern Ocean rescue of French yachtswoman Isabelle Autissier who's yacht had capsized and remained inverted (a bad period for the Open 60 class). Soldini hit the headlines to such an extent that he received the ultimate accolade of being parodied in Italian satire shows, as Ellen MacArthur has in the UK. This was odd for someone absolutely non-plussed about publicity - being one of our sport's ultimate anti-heroes, out of a similar mould perhaps to Francis Joyon.

Soldini's successful Around Alone was his second go at the singlehanded round the world race with stops after a harrowing event four years earlier where he match raced Australian David Adams (Race Director of the last Velux 5 Oceans) around the world aboard their evenly matched Open 50s: Adams' True Blue, a relatively conventional Scott Jutson design with a single rudder, Soldini's Kodak a much more extreme, beamy Jean Berret affair, built in Italy by former drug addicts as part of their rehabiliation program. Soldini started that race clean cut, vaguely Robert de Niro-looking and finished it with a shaggy beard and long wild hair, the same 'rat looking out of a thicket' image that has become something of his trademark ever since.

After Around Alone Soldini moved into the ORMA 60 class, but was never able and never seemed interested in keeping up with the Breton arms race in the class. His boat eventually capsized and was abandoned during the last Transat Jacques Vabre in 2005, the destroyed hulk of the upturned tri washing up on a beach in Brazil.

Since then Soldini has been lying low. Last year he bought a Swan 40 in the US, sailed it back to Italy, did it up and sold it, but otherwise spent most of his time at home with his family and numerous bambinos.

However, now for the first time since Around Alone, Soldini is making his monohull comeback, this time in the Class 40 with a new boat currently in build in Lorient to a design by the talented up and coming French architect Guillaume Verdier. Verdier originally worked for Groupe Finot (when Soldini had his winning Open 60 Fila designed there - Fila was most recently sailed around the world by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in the Velux 5 Oceans), was part of Yves Parlier's Aquitaine Innovations design time and most recently has been working in conjunction with multihull designers Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost on new Open 60s for Marc Guillemot and Kito de Pavant.



For Soldini, moving into the Class 40 is a case of getting back to his roots. "It is nice because the boat is really similar to the technology of Kodak. It is exactly the same construction [GRP - carbon is banned under Class 40 rules] and the same simple idea – there is water ballast, the keel is fixed, etc. It is great."

Another attraction of the Class 40 for Soldini is that it doesn't require a 'big program' - Class 40 campaign is a whole lot more managable than the ones he carried out in the Open 60 and ORMA. "In the other classes the problem is that you have got to do the keel with a very strange technology, so just for the keel you can spend 1,200,000 Euros. Then you have to move the keel, so you want to build the rams in titanium - so another 100,000 Euros for that. Everything is like that. The worst thing is that these boats are so complicated that you need to give them a lot of attention, so that when it comes back home [from a race] you need five or six people to work like crazy to put the boat back into good shape and that’s where you spend the money. In the Class 40 this is impossible. You can spend more money for sure, but you cannot spend 1 million Euro. You could, but you will not go faster."

So a Class 40 program will be a lot simpler, he hopes, and more enjoyable as a result. There will be more time spent sailing and less time spent fiddling with technical details ashore. "I hope the boat will not need any work at all! Apart from the bottom paint."

The leading boats in last year's Route du Rhum for example were bog standard Pogos, the original production boat Class 40. "I think the difference between the boats is small for the moment," says Soldini, adding that a top notch boat costs around 220,000 Euros. "If you build the boat very well and you vacuum everything, you can spend 30,000 Euros more, but not 100,000 more."

Obviously you can stay in the best hotels...."Yes, and you just drink the best whisky, you can spend 150,000 Euros more!" we both agree.

Another reason for Soldini moving into the Class 40 is one of budget. Recently money for yachting sponsorship in Italy has been largely tied up with the country's three America's Cup campaigns, however Soldini still managed to get backing for his new boat from Luna Rossa sponsor Telecom Italia, a long term backer of his. Obviously Soldini's complete Class 40 budget would just about pay for a couple of Francesco de Angelis' mainsails.

So finding money for offshore projects is hard at present but aside from this Soldini is disillusioned with both the ORMA 60 and the IMOCA Open 60 classes. "I think the Open 60s are going down the same road as the [ORMA] mulithulls. The price is becoming crazy and the space for the publicity is still the same. They are very complicated, very expensive and I don’t think it is a good direction.

"I think there will be many problems. We cannot forget that four years ago there were 18 multihulls [in the 2002 Route du Rhum]. This year two boats finished the last race - that is very stupid because that type of boat is fantastic and they needed some regulations to stop them throwing away money on stupid things. You cannot change a daggerboard every six months and spend 100,000 Euro to get an extra 0.0005% upwind. It is not interesting and it is not economically possible. You can do that in the America’s Cup maybe, but not in the rest. I think the 40 class is very smart about that. It is nearly impossible to spend the money. And it is very nice to compete with 40 boats and enjoy sailing and that’s it..."

The latest generation of Open 60s, Soldini reckons, cost around 3 million Euros, the same price as a new ORMA 60 trimaran. "The budgets have grown up at a crazy speed and I think the publicity is always the same."

And because there are more of them, he reckons, the slice of the publicity cake will be all the smaller despite the bigger investment by sponsors. "I think after this Vendee Globe there will be many sponsors not happy. Everyone is ready to put 3, 4, 5 million € to win the Vendee Globe but many of them will be third, fourth or fifth. I think they have to be careful. This kind of boats are very nice, but maybe we need to think about what is the good thing to do to keep the machine going around."

The sailors behind ORMA 60s, but to a greater extent the IMOCA Open 60s, have also changed in recent years Soldini believes, going from adventurers to pure sportsmen and this, he feels, is a loss. "They are in the middle of the sea, so sure the adventure is still there – it is still the same! But the feeling we get from the people is not the same. There is a different message. Before it was more simple."

The new Telecom Italia boat, Soldini hopes, will be launched during September, ready - just - for the Transat Jacques Vabre starting at the end of October. In this race somewhere around forty Class 40s are expected to be on the start line, making it by far the most popular class of offshore race boat. And the growth in the class is not just limited to France. Even in Italy it seems to be taking off says Soldini. "For sure the class is growing very fast. In Italy they are building or buying 40s like crazy. There are already five or six boats there . That is strange for Italy because we’ve never had that before."

Beyond the TJV this autumn, Soldini says he is still formulating what he wants to do. He says he would like to compete in another singlehanded round the world race "before he has to draw his pension". As ever he seems reluctant to race in the Vendee Globe, but there is the prospect of racing in Josh Hall's round the world race in his Class 40, however he is more interested in the SolOceans, the French singlehanded round the world race with one stop in purpose-built one designs.

Whatever he decides to do, it is a great pleasure to have one of our sports' most charismatic individuals back on board.