From San Francisco to Shanghai in 21 days and 19 hours: Maserati and Giovanni Soldini fly across the Pacific on the Tea Clipper Route. Next up is the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race
21 days, 19 hours, 32 minutes and 54 seconds: that was the time it took Maserati to cover the Tea Clipper Trade Route, plied between San Francisco and Shanghai in the mid-1800s by the most audacious and modern clippers of the day.
An excellent new time reference which Soldini and Maserati will ask the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the international body that certifies the best times of modern craft on the historic clipper routes, to ratify.
Maserati sailed across the finish-line at Shanghai on the 31st of May at 9:25:44 pm GMT (11:25:44 pm Italian time, 5:25:44 of the 1st of June local time).
She cast off from San Francisco at 1:52:50 GMT (3:52:50 Italian time) on the night of May 10 and then sprinted 7392 real nautical miles (great circle distance: 5334 nautical miles) at an average speed of 14,1 knots.
Giovanni Soldini was flanked aboard by an international crew of eight: Italians Guido Broggi, Andrea Fantini, Francesco Malingri and Marco Spertini; GermanBoris Herrmann; Chinese sailor Jianghe “Tiger” Teng; Spaniard Oliver Herrera Perez; and Swede Andreas Axelsson.
“We are satisfied,” declared Soldini just after crossing the line. “As always, Maserati proved what an excellent craft she is and the crew made an efficient and very tightknit team. Twenty-one days from San Francisco to Shanghai is a very impressive time. We will be requesting that the World Sailing Speed Record certify it. Conditions were good almost the entire way. The first part of the route was very fast: six days to Hawaii is an excellent time. Then, once we got into the Trade Winds, we had 10 days or so of good average speeds with the spi out the whole time.
The final section as we neared China was the trickiest with very light winds and rain, but nothing we weren’t expecting. There was also an earthquake just as we were off the Japanese islands. This route was very important in the 1800s and remains important today. We hope that these 7,000-plus miles will quickly become a classic record for monohulls, like the New York-San Francisco.”
The VOR70 Maserati’s next event is in Australia where, in late December, she’ll take part in the Rolex Sydney – Hobart Yacht Race, one of the world’s most famous and challenging sailing events.
