“It was a fantastic race!”: the words of Giovanni Soldini as he disembarked from Maserati at Hobart, having just crossed the finish-line of the 71st Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in fourth position. “Yet again Maserati proved herself a solid boat and she got excellent preparation. We also managed to avoid damaging anything. The crew was excellent too: very tight and efficient. We had a bit of everything thrown at us in this race. At the start, we ended up with three buoys and at least 50 metres of line tangled around the keel and wasted a good half-hour freeing ourselves of them. The other competitors had flown on ahead about a dozen miles by then. When we got going again though, we decided to just do our own race, cool and calm. And it turned out very well. The sailing was excellent for the first part of the race, both in terms of the front and beating all the way to Tasmania. We were always on the button when the wind turned and we had some great angles. In fact, we managed to not only catch up with Ragamuffin, a 100’, but also engage her in a fabulous match race. Unfortunately though, a high pressure area arrived and Ragamuffin was able to make a speed of 10 knots in a five-knot wind. Plus we also got stuck in a couple of big clouds with absolutely no wind. The arrival into Tasmania wasn’t entirely favourable to us either. In the end, we managed to get beyond the high pressure area, catch a northerly and then made landfall at Hobart with the spi out. This marks the end of our adventure with the VOR 70 after three years of sailing around the world and I’m happy to have closed the circle on a high note”.
2015 Sydney to Hobart
