On Wednesday 25 June, at its Maranello headquarters, Ferrari unveiled its Hypersail project, the future foiling 100-foot monohull designed by Guillaume Verdier and due to be launched in 2026, with Giovanni Soldini at the helm. Tip & Shaft tells you more.
It took Ferrari almost 80 years to get into sailing! Although the famous Italian car manufacturer, founded in 1947 by Enzo Ferrari, has already designed and built boats, it was only motorboats, notably the legendary Arno XI, launched in 1953 to challenge the world water speed record. A small revolution was therefore officially unveiled on 25 June at the headquarters of the Prancing Horse brand, in the form of the Hypersail, the future 100-foot monohull.
What prompted Ferrari to embark on this project? You have to go back three years to understand how it all came about, with one man at the origin, Guillaume Verdier. Contacted on Thursday morning by Tip & Shaft at the same time as Marco Guglielmo Ribigni, chief engineer of the Hypersail team, the naval architect explains: “This project goes back to 2019-2020, when I was given blank page to design the new Magic Carpet for Lindsay Owen-Jones (former CEO of L’Oréal). We came up with a sort of conceptual 30-metre hydrofoil boat, with lift provided by a foil in the canting keel, a bit like a foil on a windsurfer or a wingfoil. This project didn’t come to fruition because Lindsay Owen-Jones didn’t want to go in that way.”
While Guillaume Verdier settled on a more classic design for the British owner, he kept his foiler project under wraps and presented it to Giovanni Soldini a few months later. Why him? “I’m very close to Giovanni, and I’ve known him since the late 1990s, when I worked for the Finot group, and I did some work on his Orma. With my team, we then designed his Class40 and then transformed his MOD70 Maserati (formerly Gitana XV) by adding T-foils on the rudders to make it fly offshore. So it was quite natural for me to talk to him about this project.”
“Innovation is part
part of Ferrari’s DNA”
It was a project that quickly won over the 59-year-old Italian: “I liked the fact that it was really something very new, but also very difficult to achieve, with this concept of a monohull that flies”, he confirms to Tip & Shaft. He then spoke to John Elkann, the head of Ferrari (and chairman of Stellantis), whom he had known for many years (he had sailed on Maserati), who opened the doors of the Scuderia to Giovanni Soldini and Guillaume Verdier, where they presented the concept.
What was the Ferrari’s reaction? “When I walked into the meeting room and saw our chairman John Elkann and Giovanni, I said to myself: ‘Oh, we’ve got a problem’, because I knew they weren’t there to talk about cars, but very quickly I was very excited by what they showed,” smiles Marco Guglielmo Ribigni, who is coordinating the project. He wasn’t the only one, as Ferrari agreed to get involved. What made the famous Italian manufacturer decide? “One of the main reasons was that innovation is part of Ferrari’s DNA, and we thought it would be a great challenge for us to try and redefine the limits of what is possible in a new area for us. That’s why the project has been called Hypersail, in reference to our Hypercars“, he replies.
Before adding: “We like to design cars that, when you drive them, give you a unique emotion. It’s a bit the same feeling we had when Guillaume and his team shared their vision of this machine with us. So at that point, our reaction was to say, ‘OK, let’s embark on this great adventure‘.”
A self-sufficient 100-footer
With the project validated, Guillaume Verdier continued to review hull shapes in CFD – around fifty, he says – for this boat, which will have three points of support: one of the two lateral foils, which resemble those used on the AC75s in the Cup, a large T-foil on the rudder, and also one at the bottom of the keel, a bit like the ones under the central daggerboard of the Ultims. “The architecture is quite different from that of the AC75s because we don’t have the constraints of the Cup rules and the stability criteria aren’t the same,” explains the architect, who adds that the 100-footer “will be able to redresse itself, like the Imoca boats”, and should take off from “10-11 knots of wind”.
For its part, Ferrari has put all its firepower into the design, with two major areas developed in-house, thanks to the Scuderia’s expertise in the field: flight control software to ensure the dynamic stability of the future Hypersail and energy self-sufficiency, with no combustion engine on board. “We decided to use electric power, an area in which we have over fifteen years’ experience,” explains Marco Guglielmo Ribigini. We spent a lot of time designing a system capable of harvesting energy, because we first had to define the boat’s needs in terms of the performance we wanted to achieve.”
While the design is now “90% complete”, according to Guillaume Verdier, Marco Guglielmo Ribigni points out that “Giovanni and the design teams continually use the simulator developed by Benjamin Muyl to understand the dynamics of the boat. That’s why we’ve kept the design and construction in parallel, we’re trying to keep the doors open until the final days, taking advantage of the fact that we can use the simulator to ask ourselves again what’s the best thing to do.”
A purpose-built boatyard
Construction began in January 2024 at a boatyard specially built for the occasion, the location of which Ferrari does not wish to reveal – the Giornale della Vela refers to the Pisa region – with the chief engineer explaining: “It took us around six months to decide on the location of the base, because we needed a place that wasn’t too far from the sea, but where we could also easily move all the people involved in the project.” Around a hundred people in all.
The launch is planned “during 2026”, with what objectives? While Guillaume Verdier talks about a “record breaker“, he points out that the Hypersail “complies with Isaf (World Sailing) rules, so it’s a boat that can take part in many races”. Ferrari and Giovanni Soldini, however, are not yet willing to commit to any programme. Asked about a possible round-the-world record, Giovanni Soldini replies “Maybe”, before adding, when asked if the Hypersail could rival the Ultims, currently the fastest offshore boats on the planet: “It’s not a question I can answer today. It’s something so new that we haven’t set any sporting objectives for the moment. We’ll have to wait until we’re sailing and have a good understanding of how the boat works before we can imagine what we can do and how far we can go.”
The Italian skipper intends to put together a “very international” crew by January 2026, as Hypersail is designed to be sailed by “around ten people”. Finally, he confides that he feels “a great responsibility and honour to be sailing under the Ferrari colours in the near future”.
Photo : Alessio Cosmelli / Ferrari
