Giovanni Soldini's Maserati speedster

The Italian skipper on his modified VO70 and record program

Mari Cha IV’s nine year old monohull record for the west to east crossing of the North Atlantic came under threat earlier this month when Giovanni Soldini’s modified VO70 Maserati was at one point 200 miles ahead of the pace of Robert Miller’s mighty 140ft schooner.

Unfortunately Maserati's attempt came acropper when the weather failed to materialise mid-Atlantic. “When we started all the weather models showed that in the back of the cold front there was plenty of northwest wind, but when we arrived there the reality was that on the back of the front was a ridge of high pressure,” Soldini admitted to us. “We were working with meteo people and we tried to pass the ridge to the north and it was still possible to break the record even with the ridge, but the problem was we went very far north and then we caught the northwesterlies but they were only 8-9 knots. The boat speed was around 10 knots but then the pressure, instead of going down, suddenly started to go up again and the wind went down a little bit...”

This was despite no shortage of input on the weather and routing from experts ashore, Soldini working as usual with Pierre Lasnier in France, but also Ken Campbell from Commander’s Weather in the USA and a new company in Belgium that runs models and routing, providing percentage chances of outcomes occurring. “It was very interesting with the ridge - that night he [the Belgum router] ran the 170 models and he said you have a 49% of a chance. And it was true. I was feeling that we were 30 miles away from the good wind. But no luck. We ended up at 57degN!”

Soldini’s initial plan with the former Ericsson 3 VO70 was to compete in the present Volvo Ocean Race. The boat was bought with the help of seed funding from Johann Elkann, grand son of Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli but with the European economy having fallen on hard times, raising the required funds proved impossible.

“The problem of the Volvo is that you need too much,” says Soldini. “Even with an old boat, if you want to do the campaign in a serious way you need at least 12 million Euros - less than that and it starts to be tough - and it is just too much money at this moment. I contacted 220 companies and many of them were interested but the money was just too much.”

So with the Volvo Ocean Race plan having failed to materialise and with the VO70 still in Italy, so Soldini put together a more realistic plan for a series of record attempts with backing from Maserati (which Fiat owns) and from insurance giant Generali. “We had the boat and it was crazy not to do anything with it. There are plenty of good things to do with a boat like that and Maserati like the idea of the records, the speed and the passion...”

Last summer they carried out work on the boat and this has taken it out of VO70 class. This involved changing the keel to a smaller lighter but longer one and Soldini estimates they removed 1.5 tonnes from bulb and foil. The design work was carried out by Guillaume Verdier (Soldini commissioned Verdier’s first Class40 design). While the boat is lighter they have modified the water ballast configuration on board, now with 1.5 tonnes each side at the back, so that with this fully loaded up the boat can maintain the same righting moment as she did before.

“Also we have taken off a lot of stuff like the generator, some of the batteries, one of the liferafts and they normally have a spare daggerboard and rudder and we don’t have any of that now,” Soldini continues. “So when we are sailing we are at least three tonnes lighter.”

Ever a shorthanded sailor, Soldini has also reduced the crew from 11 down to eight and has simplified the sail wardrobe, removing all the spinnakers except the storm spinnaker, but leaving a masthead and fractional gennikers and some of the upwind headsails. As a result they sail with seven sails on board instead of 12 and there is a lot less stacking to be done.

The end result, Soldini says, is that downwind the boat – which was already considered the fastest of the 2008-9 generation VO70s - is faster still downwind. “Especially in medium conditions it is very fast – it is like 1.5 knots higher than the polars all the time. Upwind? We don’t do that a lot! Probably it is slower especially with the sea state because the boat is lighter and it has less inertia. The boat is solid and the fact that it is lighter is better for the boat. For sure we have a little bit less power in certain conditions.”

As to their plans now, Soldini says he was keen to do an about turn and head back to New York to go on stand-by to make another attempt on the North Atlantic monohull record. However they have corporate commitments that will take Maserati back to the Mediterranean to Palma, Ibiza and Monte Carlo before another refit is scheduled, to be carried out at Cantiere Picchiotti in La Spezia.

Soldini is contemplating an attempt on the trans-Mediterranean record from Marseille-Carthage late this summer before heading back across the Atlantic to take on Maserati’s next big challenge: the New York to San Francisco ecord. They will go on stand-by for this from December.

The New York to San Francisco is a famous clipper record, with a 89 day time held for some 100 years by the Flying Cloud until it was broken in 1989 by Warren Luhrs’ early Open 60 Thursday’s Child. However five years later Luhrs' time of 80 days was demolished by Isabelle Autissier reducing the record to 62 days, aboard Ecureuil Poitou-Charentes II, the first canting keel Open 60. Her time stood despite three Open 60s, including her, attempting to break it in the Gold Race in 1998.

Soldini obviously has strong ties to Autissier having plucked her from her upturned yacht from the depths of the Pacific during the 1998/9 Around Alone race.

Soldini doesn’t know who will be on Maserati later in the season yet. A regular is fellow singlehanded round the world race winner Brad van Liew, but the line-up has included Volvo Ocean Race sailors David Vera, Javier de la Plaza and former MCM Gabriele Olivo along with French legend Sebastien Audiagne and German Boris Herrmann. “The spirit of Maserati is to have an international crew. The plan until today is to try people and try to have a good group of people to call on when we need them,” says Soldini. When we visited the boat in Portsmouth in torrential rain recently among the crew was British sailor Tom Gall.

The deal with Maserati is set to last until next year. After the New York-San Francisco attempt Soldini says he would like to make another attempt on the New York-Lizard record or may head to the Far East. “We will see because the economy is very scary at the moment and the other thing is that the budget is not just Maserati it is also Generali and they are not very interested in the USA.”

The Maserati VO70 was in the UK to assist in the launch of the Italian supercar manufacturer's GranCabrio Sport convertible, which we got to drive for a morning unfortunately during an unceasing monsoon-like downpour. The GranCabrio Sport is powered by a 4.7lt V8 delivering 450hp and top speed of 177 mph and is simply the most impressive sportscar we've ever driven, although we've very much like to try it again in less 'challenging' conditions.