Next Stop: Hawaii

American Ryan Breymaier was among the nine men that successfully sailed the VO70 Maserati to establish a new reference time of 47:00:42:29 for the Golden Route, in the monohull category, from New York to San Francisco crossing Cape Horn. Here Ryan provides his wrap report…

Well the dust has finally settled. After a huge weekend, starting with arriving in San Francisco with Maserati on Saturday morning and celebrating through Sunday, I finally have time to sit and send this final Maserati New York – San Francisco wrap-up.

The frustrations of the final few (light air) days were forgotten immediately as we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and sailed up the bay to cross the second line between Alcatraz and Pier 39. The welcome was more than any of us expected.

The sun was out and we were accompanied all the way by the San Francisco fireboat will all hoses at full power, plus a fleet of boats with journalists, photographers, local sailors, friends, family and even the local Italian dignitaries!

On Sunday the festivities continued with an exceptional afternoon hosted at the Italian Consulate building in Pacific Heights. The high point of which was a forced recital of the Italian national anthem by Gio, Corrado, Michele and Guido!

Our final tally for the record was just over 47 days; 10 days shorter that Yves Parlier’s standing record. We were all very satisfied with this result which accomplishes our main objective of setting a modern reference time that is hopefully difficult to beat in the next few years.

As a crew we had a great time though by the end of nearly 50 days together we were getting close to the end of things to talk about in the light air.

The boat is now at the shipyard in Richmond (CA) where we have begun the process of stripping her down ready for a thorough refit over the next couple of months. The racing crew has started to leave town and there is just a core of the technical team that remain. The plan is to optimize the boat ahead of this summer’s Transpac Race. — Read on: http://breymaiersailing.com/?p=2138