Ferrari Hypersail, Giovanni Soldini leaves the scene
John Elkan, Ferrari Chairman: 'Ferrari Hypersail is a project that requires different skills in its various development phases. My sincerest thanks go to Giovanni for the competence and dedication with which he led the first phase of the project'
If the press release had arrived the day before, it would have seemed like the classic 'April Fools' joke', a piece of news invented to make a bit of a spectacle. Instead, it is all true: Giovanni Soldini has been 'kindly pushed' out of the grandiose project he had started.
That of a record-breaking boat, something no one had ever seen with the ultimate goal of being the first to sail around the world in a monohull in less than 40 days, beating even multihulls.
An ocean-going but foiling boat, the kind that rises above the water. The press release is written from the tip of the pen and cleverly includes statements from the two, by now it can be said, former friends John Elkan and Giovanni Soldini.
It is clear that behind the measured statements there is a significant rupture. Will the project remain unfinished? It is impossible to say, but instead of Soldini, Enrico Voltolini, a nautical engineer who took part in the America's Cup on Luna Rossa and the Sail Gp, will step in as project leader. Super technicians remain in the team, such as designer Guillaume Verdier, inventor of this type of flying monohull at the time when he worked for Emirates Team New Zealand, and Glen Ashby, perhaps little known to the Italian public but a brilliant Australian sailor.
Olympic silver medallist and winner with New Zealand as skipper of the now famous and only 2017 America's Cup in Bermuda. It was he who brought a whole host of innovations to New Zealand, first by flying the catamaran in 2013 and then making Aotearoa unbeatable in 2021 against Luna Rossa. Not only that, he also won the land speed record with a craft propelled by sail alone: 222 kmh. You try it... What does the press release write? That the design phase is over and that we are now entering another moment, that of the borbo systems. In short, words of circumstance. Only time will tell what really happened.
