It’s late in the afternoon when Massimo Dell’Acqua gets to our offices and delivers us the lines we will use for our tests.
For those who, like us, have seen their hair turning white while spending much time on the sea, the Gottifredi Maffioli brand has always been synonym with yachting and innovation.
Founded in 1926 by Maria Gottifredi, the Novara-based firm took its current name when Maria’s husband, Ettore Luigi Maffioli, joined his wife in the management of the company. In 1954, the company developed the first synthetic climbing rope never made in the world. These innovative lines were used by the famous Italian expedition (Compagnoni – Lacedelli) that conquered the K2. Since then, the massive outline of the K2, also known as “the Italian mountain”, has appeared in the Gottifredi Maffioli logo to celebrate the success of that memorable expedition.
Quality and performance of their lines are unequivocal. The marriage with Americas’ Cup started with Azzurra, the first (and very popular) Italian boat challenging for the “100 Guineas Cup”. Even then (in ’80s), Gottifredi Maffiolli represented, in fact, the best of Italian innovation experiencing the first pioneeristic tests with Kevlar. Â
Since then, the company was selected as supplier of many Italian and foreign sailing teams.
This is why it wouldn’t make sense to test lines already subject to the typical extreme stress of sailing competitions. What we want to test now is, on the contrary, the attitude of “normal” products commonly used by normal owners on their sailing or motor boats.
The question to which we want to give an answer is: does advanced technology, typically designed for sailing competitions, bring any advantages for recreational boats, too?”.
Our readers indeed normally struggle with more practical everyday problems, such as mooring lines’ “softness” or abrasion resistance, in addition to halyards’ lengths and stretchability.
For all these reasons, we’ve asked to be allowed to test 
a couple of state-of-the-art mooring lines and a particular halyard for our walkway.
More specifically, we’ve chosen the Maxidock model. With a length of 16 metres and a diameter of 18 mm, these dock lines are double braid and characterized by a Polyamide core and a Polyster cover. Their breaking strength is 8,500 kg and, considering that the Daydreamer weights 11 tons, we can say that they are good enough. After all, we only want them to be soft and resistant.
The halyard has an arduous task since it has to hold its tension and length while keeping the on-board gangway in position.
This is why we’ve chosen a 10 mm double-braid Softech halyard, with a Dyneema core, a Polyester cover and a breaking strength of 4,350 kg.
Both products are perfectly in line with our expectations. Mooring lines are very soft and easy to coil. The halyard is easily manoeuvrable, low stretch and with considerable grip.
The attractive design of both products immediately impresses us, especially because this doesn’t impose a price increase. So, we take our camera and dedicate the cover of this article to the beauty of these lines with the promise of taking the same shot at the end of our test.
We’re sailing off in a few days to test what Gottifredi Maffioli Sales Manager Massimo Dell’Acqua has delivered to us. Meanwhile, Massimo smiles and doesn’t seem the least bit worried about how we’re going to treat his products.
Of course, we’ll record all the data collected, accompanying our test with a complete set of pictures and videos which will testify the real performances of materials.
Furthermore, if you want to see them with your own eyes, please remind that our la-boat, the Daydreamer, will be docked at the Marina Porto Antico (Ponte Morosini) during the next Genoa International Boat Show and, on Sunday 24th September, she will open her doors to the our readers.
