Enrico Voltolini: In conversation with the Ferrari Hypersail project leader

From Olympic sailing to the America’s Cup and ultimately to leading the Ferrari Hypersail project. Enrico Voltolini retraces the path that led him to become the programme’s project leader and explains how speed and technology are also transforming the way sailing teams are structured.

PressMare: Enrico, your career is well known to those who follow sailing closely, but you are still a relatively new face to the wider public. How did your sailing journey begin?

Enrico Voltolini: I started sailing Optimists as a child, before moving on to the Laser, Finn and Star classes. In 2011, I won the Star European Championship with Diego Negri. I subsequently took part in the last two America’s Cup campaigns with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, and I am still involved with the Red Bull Italy SailGP Team.

I have been working with Ferrari Hypersail since July last year. Giovanni Soldini brought me into the project, and in April this year I became its project leader.

PM: Which experience in your career shaped you the most and is proving particularly valuable today on the Ferrari Hypersail project?

E.V.: Definitely the America’s Cup. It is an all-encompassing experience: every day, all day, you work alongside sailors, engineers and specialists operating at the very highest level. There is a constant exchange of knowledge, and you learn an enormous amount. A significant part of my technical background comes from that experience.

PM: What convinced you to accept this new challenge and, subsequently, to take responsibility for leading the project?

E.V.: I have always had a great passion for the sea and a strong desire to take on the oceans. Throughout my career, however, I have mainly ended up racing inshore.

Ferrari Hypersail finally gave me the opportunity to move towards ocean sailing, as part of a programme in which Ferrari is taking technology to an exceptionally advanced level. It was an extremely exciting combination.

PM: As well as being a sailor, you are also a naval engineer. How important is that background in your current role?

E.V.: It is essential. Leading a project of this kind requires a sound technical and scientific background, together with the ability to understand the programme as a whole. Being a sailor alone is no longer enough.

The crews sailing the most advanced boats are also becoming increasingly technical. They need an in-depth understanding of the onboard systems: you cannot expect to sail a boat this sophisticated without understanding how its systems work.

PM: How has the role of the skipper changed aboard high-technology boats?

E.V.: I believe the traditional figure of the skipper partly belongs to the past, or at least to boats that remained more closely connected to traditional sailing, such as the International America’s Cup Class yachts used up to the Valencia Cup editions.

The world of high-technology, high-speed sailing has changed profoundly. In the past, the skipper would helm the boat, manage relationships with sponsors, oversee logistics and deal with many other aspects of the project.

Today, concentrating all those responsibilities in one person would inevitably lower the overall level of performance. There will therefore be a head of the sailing team, alongside helmsmen, foil controllers, grinders and navigators. It will be a structure built around specialists. I do not envisage a single skipper in the traditional sense of the term.

PM: Are you already working on assembling the sailing team?

E.V.: Yes, I am currently putting the team together. The first members will be announced in September, but at this stage we cannot reveal anything further.

PM: The most immediate comparison for Hypersail is with Gitana 18, currently one of the most advanced Ultim trimarans. What are the differences between your foils and theirs, considering that the same designer is involved in both projects?

E.V.: I do not know the details of Gitana 18’s foils, so I cannot make a direct technical comparison.

It is important, however, to consider that their project is the result of the progressive evolution of several boats developed within a class governed by a box rule. Their overall level of development is therefore inevitably more advanced.

Ferrari Hypersail, by contrast, has been conceived as a prototype. The launch will not represent the end of the process, but the beginning of the boat’s real-world development programme.

Giuliano Luzzatto

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