Giovanni Soldini and the Maserati Multi 70 arrived in Antigua, in the Caribbean, ready for the 12th edition of the RORC Caribbean 600, which will start on 24 February at 11.30am local time from Fort Charlotte.
For this edition the race, organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, attracted 74 entrants from more than 20 different countries, divided in 8 classes. Among the multihulls, with Maserati Multi 70, are 6 other boats.
Maserati Multi 70's direct competitors are the two 70's already challenged on many occasions: the American Argo, skippered by Jason Carroll, and the English PowerPlay, skippered by Peter Cunningham.
Argo's Team, who spent the past months setting up a system of flying foils and rudders, will sail in MOD mode for this race, due to technical problems with the flying appendixes. Aboard the American trimaran there will be a strong and skilled crew: the Englishman Brian Thompson, great multihull expert, and the Frenchman Franck Cammas, an extremely successful sailor.
PowerPlay will also sail in classic MOD mode, with an equally skilled crew, among which Loick Peyron, one of the most important French sailors, and Sam Goodchild, who sailed aboard the monohull Maserati in many occasions in the past.
On the starting line there will also be two trimarans already challenged by Maserati Multi 70: the 80' Ultim'Emotion 2, that was chartered by Team LoveWater for the Cape2Rio 2020, and the 63' Shockwave, which raced in the Caribbean Multihull Challenge a few days ago.
Soldini commented: “We are very happy to participate in this edition of the regatta; we are expecting it to be very hard-fought and competitive. The level of our competitors is very high so we will have to do our best and never give up. It will be an exciting race for sure, we can't wait.”
The race course, 600 miles long, both starts and finishes in Fort Charlotte, Antigua, and goes around 11 islands in the Lesser Antilles, in the Caribbean. At the sound of the starting signal, the competitors will start sailing north, passing Barbuda, Nevis, Saba and Saint Barth, then round Saint Martin and head South to Guadeloupe.
After rounding the island, they will head back North, touching the last mark off Bermuda before heading towards the finish line, back in Antigua. The course is diverse, it requires many manoeuvres and it features different winds and currents, which make the regatta particularly interesting and challenging.
The speed record of the race belongs to Giovanni Soldini himself: in 2019 Maserati Multi 70 crossed the finish line with an elapsed time of 1 day, 6 hours and 49 minutes.
