wallyrocket71

Built to beat the Maxi 72s

The brief behind the wallyrocket71 was blunt, outperform the Maxi 72 class boats that have defined grand prix big-boat racing for a decade. Botin Partners drew a 21.4 metre hull with a 5.55 metre beam that weighs roughly two tonnes less than the boats it hunts, and the weight saving compounds around the racecourse, less displacement to drag upwind, less inertia in the transitions, more speed for the same sail area.

Wally resisted the era's default answer. There are no foils. The performance comes from displacement discipline, a deep 4.9 metre bulb keel, twin rudders and moveable water ballast, technology that keeps the boat raceable by a strong amateur-professional crew and repairable in a normal yard. The yacht is engineered to perform on any course and in any scenario, which is the difference between a record chaser and a campaign boat.

Water where the crew used to sit

The defining system is the ballast. The wallyrocket71 carries 2.7 tonnes of water that can be pumped from one side to the other in around six seconds, the righting moment of a rail full of crew delivered by plumbing. Combined with the bulb keel it lets the boat stand up to its rig with fewer bodies aboard, and it makes manoeuvres cleaner because the weight moves itself while the sailors handle the sails.

The sail plan it supports is substantial, 305 square metres upwind and 630 square metres downwind on a modern square-top rig. The polars that Wally publishes are frank, upwind targets of 10.5 to 11 knots and downwind speeds designed to match or exceed the wind, numbers that put the boat at the front of any handicap fleet in the Mediterranean and make delivery passages usefully quick as well.

Two tonnes lighter than a Maxi 72, with 2.7 tonnes of water ballast crossing the boat in six seconds, and a world title in season one.

From launch to world champion in one season

The first hull, Django, was presented at the Loro Piana Giraglia in June 2025, entering the coastal races at Saint-Tropez and the offshore Giraglia just ten days after launch. Racing a brand-new grand prix boat that green is normally a way to collect retirements, but the boat was tuned on the fly and finished its baptism with the concept intact and the crew convinced.

Three months later came the proof. At Porto Cervo in September 2025 the wallyrocket71 won the Rolex IMA Maxi Grand Prix World Championship, taking a world title in its first season afloat. For a clean-sheet design from a new builder-designer pairing, that trajectory, launch in June, world champion by September, is the strongest validation a racing concept can receive, and it happened in the most competitive maxi fleet there is.

A serious build for a serious game

Construction went to King Marine in Valencia, the yard behind many of the grand prix fleet's best hulls, working with Wally's technical team and Botin's engineering. The wallyrocket71 was developed in close collaboration with an experienced maxi racing campaign, which shows in the details that matter at hour three of a windward leg, deck layouts that keep grinders effective, systems sized for repeatability and a cockpit organised around decisions.

This is the top of a racing line that Wally built from below. The wallyrocket51 established the formula, Botin design, water ballast, ratings honesty, and the 71 scales it to maxi size. The brand that created the wallycento class and populated the maxi circuit for thirty years is again building the boat the circuit measures itself against, this time with Ferretti Group's resources behind the programme.

Ownership as sport

A wallyrocket71 is not a cruising compromise and does not pretend to be. It is a campaign, a boat bought to win the Mediterranean maxi season, with the IMA circuit, Porto Cervo, Saint-Tropez and the Giraglia as its natural calendar. The owner who steps in gets a design with a world title already on the record and a performance envelope the established Maxi 72 fleet must now answer.

The rational case is unusual for a race boat. Because the concept is lighter and less crew-hungry than the boats it beats, running costs per point scored are lower, and Wally's name keeps residual interest alive in a way one-off grand prix builds rarely manage. For the owner-driver who wants silverware with a builder's warranty and a brand behind it, nothing else in the maxi fleet currently makes a stronger argument.

Para quién es: The owner-racer mounting a serious Mediterranean maxi campaign who wants a proven, foil-free weapon with a world title on the record, a fresh design edge over the Maxi 72 fleet and a real builder standing behind it.