The First Full-Electric Racing Multihull has Left Los Angeles.

4 Jul

Giovanni Soldini and the Maserati Multi70 have departed for the Transpacific Yacht Race, often known as "Transpac," from the Californian coast. The 52nd round of the now venerable biannual ocean race, run by the Transpacific Yacht Club and originally contested in 1906, spanned a distance of about 2.225 miles from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Maserati Multi70 is the first racing multihull to be fully powered by an electric system, thus, for Giovanni Soldini and the entire team, this is a significant new sporting and technological challenge. The trimaran's solar panel surfaces have been improved, and a unique, especially light and dense, battery has been created, enabling it to go entirely autonomously without compromising its performance. The Maserati Multi70 project has always been focused on research, innovation, technology, and performance, and with the help of the experts at the Maserati Innovation Lab, it is continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of its electric system and enhance its performance.

Maserati Multi70 Transpac Solar panels charge the 15 kWh battery that powers the Multi70's electric moto

The fleet of the Transpacific Yacht Race, which consists of more than sixty boats, collected on the starting line off Point Fermin over the course of three consecutive days. On July 1 at 11:55 a.m. local time, the signal for the multihulls was issued (6:55 p.m. UTC; 8:55 p.m. Italian time). The two American MOD 70s Argo, with captain Jason Carroll and navigator Brian Thompson, and Orion, with skipper Justin Shaffer, are direct competitors to the Maserati Multi70. Guido Broggi (ITA), Oliver Herrera Perez (ESP), Francesco Malingri (ITA), Francesco Pedol (ITA), Matteo Soldini (ITA), and Lucas Valenza-Troubat make up the professional crew on board alongside Giovanni Soldini (FRA).

“It will be very important to get into the wind first in order to start across with a wind that will turn more and more stern in the following days. We will end up gybing coming over Hawaii,” says Giovanni Soldini. “We will have to sail a fairly high course, at risk of collisions with floating objects and also, from a technical point of view, it will definitely be a tough race for us because we will not be flying. We had a customs problem with the support container and so we will not be able to count on the best performing set of sails and flying foils, and that is a pity because in the transoceanics they give their best. But, as usual, we will sell our skin dearly!"

The racecourse travels close to the so-called plastic island, a Pacific rubbish vortex that increases the likelihood of crashes. Maserati Multi70, which is competing in this competition for the third time after taking part in the 2017 and 2019 editions, has firsthand experience with this and has suffered damage in both instances as a result of colliding with sea objects: the first time, it lost its right rudder, and the second time, it lost a metre of the left hull's bow due to the impact with a very large object at night.

Since its inaugural edition in 1906, the Transpacific Yacht Race has risen in significance to become the most significant competitive event in the Pacific. It is one of the longest-running offshore races in the world, along with the Bermuda Race on the East Coast of the United States. The course requires the fleet to leave Catalina Island on the left after leaving the starting line in Pt. Fermin, Los Angeles, and to sail with headwinds for a significant portion of the race to the finish line at Diamond Head, Honolulu, Hawaii, in weather conditions characteristic of this time of year.

Follow the Challenge: maserati.soldini.it

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