There was no record to ‘break’, but Hannes and team still had to prepare and test the boat. They spent three weekends in Venice checking the engines and testing propellers before it was decided to use the Venice-Monte Carlo run as a ‘test bed’.

Buzzi memorably said, ‘we are not concerned with watching the weather, I designed this boat and there is ‘nothing’ to worry about relating to the weather’. This was truly a ‘shakedown’ run.

On June 16th FB 80‘ left Venice, travelled down through the Adriatic sea along the south coast of Italy and arrived in Messina (for a planned fuel stop) having averaged nearly 52 knots. Problems refuelling delayed the team and they left at approximately 20.00 with the weather turning infavourable.

The wind and sea reached Force 6-7 through the Tyrrhenian Sea on the way towards Corsica. One of the engines broke, they had lost some gears, and there were other problems, so the team decided to pull into Olbia. Repairs took 24 hours before they were able to set off again for Monte Carlo, arricing at 17.55 on Monday 18th June, a very tired and bruised crew, but with a record of 58h 53m 51s, a lot slower than hoped but still an average of 19.338 knots.

Nevertheless the FB 80’ proved unmatchable reliability in hull design and construction technology.