Magic run

Peter confirmed that the schedule for Wizard includes the Transatlantic Race, The Rolex Fastnet Race and the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Wizard‘s crew led by the Askew brothers was skippered by Charlie Enright (USA), Richard Clarke (CAN), Simon Fisher (GBR), Phillip Harmer (AUS), Robbie Kane (USA), Chris Maxted (AUS), Mark Towill (USA), Phil Trinter (USA), John von Schwarz (USA) , Mitchell White (AUS), Daryl Wislang (NZL).

Meanwhile, Maserati, the Multi 70 skippered by Giovanni Soldini (ITA), crossed the finish line of the RORC Caribbean 600 at 20:49:00 AST on Tuesday 19 February 2019 in an elapsed time of 1 day, 06 hours 49 minutes and 00 seconds, taking Multihull Line honours and setting a new Multihull Race Record in the 11th edition of the race; beating the previous record by just over one hour.

 Maserati Multi 70 crew included Giovanni Solidni (ITA), Vittorio Bissaro (IT), Guido Broggi (IT), Carlos Hernandez Robayna (ESP), Oliver Herrera Perez (ESP), Nico Malingri (IT), Matteo Soldini (IT) Claude Thélier (FRA). 

The extraordinary events surrounding the battle for Multihull Line Honours will be remembered for years to come. Just 48 hours before the start of the 2019 RORC Caribbean 600, Jason Carroll’s MOD 70 Argo (USA) capsized at high speed in training. It seemed impossible that Argo would be racing, but after a monumental effort by the sailing community in Antigua, Argo‘s crew and shore team, Argo miraculously made the impossible a reality.

On the day of the race start, Giovanni Soldini agreed to a two hour delay at Argo‘s request. An epic match race was to follow over 600 miles around 11 Caribbean islands, racing day and night, both multihulls recording over 30 knots of boat speed. At Redonda, the final island of the course, Argo made a great tactical move to close the gap on Maserati and an intense match race provided the final twist to this fantastic story. Soldini’s Maserati held off Argo to win by just over seven minutes, after 30 hours of explosive action. Both Maserati and Argo broke the race record and the former champion skipper, Lloyd Thornburg congratulated both skippers on their achievements as they arrived back on the dock in Antigua.

“It was amazing that this race even happened. It was the first time in history that a multihull so big came back from a capsize like that – incredible.

I was very happy to agree to delay that start, to race against one of the best teams in the world,” commented Soldini.

“We had a wonderful race, very windy, very fast, with very good manoeuvres from both teams. We had some technical problems at Guadeloupe, we could not use our Solent for five hours and we had a small problem with one rudder, but it was a great fight. After Guadeloupe we could see Argo all the time and they were getting bigger and bigger with our problems, but we had a good lead and we kept calm and solved the problem. From Redonda to the finish we used classic match racing, trying to keep ourselves between Argo and the finish.”

caribbean600.rorc.org