Maserati lining up for the Strait

Giovanni Soldini and his team due to round Cape Horn tomorrow morning

Nearly 21 days have passed since Maserati departured New York and Giovanni Soldini and his crew are now more than 6,700 miles into their voyage.

Maserati, their modified VOR70 is now grappling with one of the most delicate steps of the historical 'gold route', the rounding of Cape Horn against the prevailing winds and currents.

"On board everything is fine," reports Soldini. "We are ready to face the passage of Cape Horn against the wind. We're heading towards the Strait of Le Maire and we decided to pass directly through it in order to sail less miles and position ourselves as far to the west as possible. Passing through the Strait will be very challenging due to the 4-5 knots of counter-current and the presence of giant seaweed that could tangle up the keel. These can be up to 20m long and 20cm wide - we have to be very careful.

"All day tomorrow we will have a strong westerly wind, with gusts up to 40 knots. We also know that there are seven or eight icebergs between the Strait and Cape Horn, so we will sail very close to the coast with our radar switched on. Our strategy will be to exploit the slightest change in the wind direction in order to head quickly west and then north, parallel to the Chilean coast. At the same time we must not get too close because the Andes are so high they form a wall that compresses the isobars causing the wind to increase by up to 15 knots. We are doing our best, the ocean will decide when it will let us go".