Saturday 15 January, 2022: Giovanni Soldini’s Multi70 Maserati (ITA) has taken Multihull Line Honours in the 2022 RORC Transatlantic Race, crossing the finish line outside Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina in Grenada at 05:51:41 UTC on Saturday 15th January (Corrected: 6d 18h 51m 41s). After eight days of extraordinary racing, Maserati finished ahead of Peter Cunningham’s MOD70 PowerPlay, skippered by Ned Collier Wakefield, followed by Jason Carroll’s MOD70 Argo.
Maserati’s margin of victory was less than 20 miles over PowerPlay and Argo, expressed as a fraction, that is one third of a percentage point. Giovanni Soldini has enjoyed many great successes in his glittering career, and this was one of the finest.
The camaraderie and sportsmanship between the three boats was exemplified by Soldini’s Maserati crew waiting for PowerPlay to finish, cheering them through the line. As well as Argo’s shore team fixing up a dockside barbeque at 4am, all washed down with ice cold beers provided by Port Louis Marina!
“That was really fantastic,” commented Soldini. “To do a transatlantic race like that with three boat 20 miles from each other is just amazing. We had a big problem the first night as straight away we broke the port rudder (hitting a UFO). However, in the second part of the race, luckily the angle was such that the starboard rudder was in the water.”
Less than an hour after Soldini’s Maserati had crossed the line, Peter Cunningham’s MOD70 PowerPlay (CAY) also finished the 2022 RORC Transatlantic Race. PowerPlay had led for most of the race, but even after losing by a small margin, right at the end, Peter Cunningham was upbeat about the experience, as he explained:
“It was the most perfect race in the sense of the last few days, even though the weather wasn’t in our favour at that time and was in Maserati’s absolute sweet spot,” commented Cunningham. “Moonlit nights with breeze and flat water, screaming along at sometimes 30 knots, it was an incredible experience, just magic. It wasn’t tough at all (to come second); Maserati with their foils could do things that we couldn’t do, and they made great decisions. At the beginning of the race, when it was rough, PowerPlay was doing things Maserati couldn’t do. I am very proud of the PowerPlay team; our manoeuvres and decisions were fantastic. We ticked all the boxes, but the conditions just didn’t favour us.”
Jason Carroll’s Argo completed the multihull line honours podium. Argo had lost part of their port rudder on the second night of the race: “It was incredible that we were all together for an amazing finish,” commented Carroll. “It was phenomenal. At times we were 100 miles apart and at other times we were crossing each other in the middle of the ocean. It was close, outstanding racing. I got into this class because I wanted a different experience from sailing and it is awesome, really cool. I would have loved to give my congratulations to Giovanni, but unfortunately due to Covid that wasn’t possible. I really appreciate the Royal Ocean Racing Club and organisers of this race giving us the opportunity for these three boats to race against each other. I will have to congratulate Giovanni and his team when we all meet again in Antigua at the RORC Caribbean 600 in February.”
For full coverage of the RORC Transatlantic Race, including race updates and stories from the teams, follow the Royal Ocean Racing Club on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. For regular updates including satellite tracking go to: www.rorctransatlantic.rorc.org
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ENDS/… Louay Habib