Record is there - no record

So, the voyage of the Maserati yacht Giovanni Soldiniwhich we announced 10 days ago, has now come to an end. The route, known as the Columbus Route (from Spanish Cadiz to San Salvador, Bahamas, considered to be the route taken by the Admiral of the Sea-Ocean himself) set an alleged record for a monohull of 10 days 23 hours 09 minutes 02 seconds.

Why «alleged record»? Because there is some difference between the Russian word «record» and the English «record» from which the Russian one comes. Speaking in Russian «record», we mean the achievement that surpasses all others. In English «record» in addition means simply «record».
So the Maserati has set a record in the latter sense. The fact is that no one had ever sailed a monohull on this particular course. There were no achievements to surpass, to beat, to put it in sporting terms. This is the first voyage on a monohull on this route. Therefore, the WSSRC Records Sheet, which keeps a record of all sailing speed records, will include this result by Maserati and his brave captain, marked «initiale record», that is «initiale record». A kind of base mark, roughly speaking, from which future records of monohull boats will be calculated (if they will be, of course - until now only multihulls were marked on this distance).

The situation is absolutely similar to the transatlantic record Fedor Konyukhov - that once crossed the Atlantic on a route no one had ever taken before. As a matter of fact, the rules are such that any person may choose any distance over 200 miles, cross it with any result and it will be counted as an initiale record by the WSSRC.
Nevertheless, in terms of sport and technique - an achievement. The Maserati yacht covered (in reality, not on the general course) 4,632 miles at an average speed of 17.6 knots. «This is quite an achievement for a monohull boat - for example, Steve Fossett's famous Playstation catamaran sailed the same distance with an average speed of 16.92 knots, and» Frank Camm's Big Green did 21.79 knots.
Frank Camma's performance was not without problems, the boat had a severe problem in the last few days due to the failure of the hydrostatic system that shifts the keel from side to side, so she finished the race with the keel in the upright position.
Now Giovanni Soldini aims to set a new record, a record of a full day crossing for a monohull with a full crew. Today the record belongs to yacht Ericsson 4 under the command of Torben Grael


. In the last VOR race (2008) she covered 596.6 nautical miles in 24 hours at an average speed of 24.85 knots.