YachtOnLine

The America's Cup changes skin

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Because there is no real big news about the America’s Cup these days, we can take the time to reflect a little. It’s an event with a long history. The first edition in the mid-1800s was attended by a great queen who would also become the Empress of India. The Europe of the day was governed by royal families all of whom were related. The regattas at Cowes were very posh indeed – right up there with Ascot and the likes. But then an American schooner sailed in from across the...

When music puts you off course

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:00:00 GMT

It’s 1982 and it’s hot. My friend, Nicola Crepax, has just gotten his nautical licence. I am 16 and inexperienced, he’s a little older and has done several sailing crossings. We are alongside the dock at Bocca di Magra in a Robalo, a 9-metre open fishing boat with 235 horses powering it. It’s July and we’re desperate for adventure. We decide to go to Corsica. As I said, it’s an open boat – no cabin, no chemical toilet. It’s 8 in the morning, but...

The last raider

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT

The Emden was a 3,000-ton light cruiser launched by the Kaiser’s Navy in May 1908. At a little under a hundred metres in length, she could make an impressive 23-knot top speed and had over 300 men aboard. The Emden was captained by Lieutenant Commander Karl von Muller. Shortly after her launch she was assigned to the Pacific fleet which was based out of the Chinese city of Tsingtao. When World War 1 broke out, the Indian Ocean became known as the “English Lake” because of Her...

Groupama: chronicle of a success

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Back in 2005, Bruno Peyron broke the 24-hour record in the North Atlantic and the non-stop round the world one too with his cat Orange II. He delivered mind-boggling speeds and his accomplishment proved a runaway media success. That year Groupama was working on a trimaran that it was designing and building specifically to beat the same record. It would take another five years of flat-out hard work by the team but in the end they got the result they were after. That said, things didn’t...

A rich summer for the yachts

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Haiti, Geneva, Abu Dhabi, Miami. Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for a very unusual issue of Yacht Capital! At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would even go so far as to say a very special, perhaps even unique one. Starting with our cover story. The America’s Cup. We had been looking for something original and, in one of our many editorial meetings, we finally asked ourselves whether it wasn’t time we literally changed our viewpoint. Whether we might bring you the...

Sailors that do business

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:00:00 GMT

Should we be looking at sailing teams as start-ups? It’s probably about time that we took a more economical approach to racing. I’m inspired in my comment by Arturo Artom, a Turin-based entrepreneur who decided to launch an Italian challenge in the Louis Vuitton Trophy, the alternative circuit to the America’s Cup (or so it is described by the company itself and Bruno Troublé). A challenge for which the “throwing down of the gauntlet” actually marks the...

Sailing, Italy back on the ball

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:00:00 GMT

The good investigator’s manual states that incontrovertible proof requires three pieces of evidence. Nothing could be more true. So let’s get straight to the facts of the matter. Or rather, the evidence. After much rumour and rumblings, it was announced in September 2009, that an Italian team, Italia 70, would compete in the next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. Less than a month later, at an event organised by Yacht Capital at Genoa, Riccardo Bonadeo announced the return of Azzurra...

Bringing the Sea into our classrooms

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

Things are starting to move. UCINA boss Anton Francesco Albertoni has discussed the possibility of making seafaring lessons compulsory on the Italian school curriculum with the Minister for Public Education Mariastella Gelmini. Now you could say that UCINA has an interest in this happening: the children of today could easily become the pleasure boaters of tomorrow and that would be to the benefit of the nautical industry. However, when I spoke to him, Albertoni put a slightly different slant...

Maritime culture and books

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

It’s paradoxical that in Italy, where we don’t read very much at all, book festivals are absolutely mobbed. There is a simple reason why: although not many Italians are readers, those that are, read a lot. And are highly motivated. I think the same principle could be applied to seafaring but with one proviso. In my opinion, people with “sea fever” are readers. It would be curious actually to calculate how much sea lovers actually read and compare them with other...

Conscientious fishing

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

It’s disconcerting to learn that sport fishing accounts for 10 per cent of the annual Mediterranean catch. Such a significant percentage more than justifies regulation of the sport. Fishing is a passion but it is something pleasure boaters must ensure they pursue sustainably. This is down to remembering a few simple rules and taking a few precautions that will mean you can go on fishing with a completely clear conscience. Let’s start with your gear. There is an endless array of...

Engines make you loose the best part of sailing

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

I think I understand why you see so many sailing yachts chugging away under engine power in conditions perfect for sailing. It’s not a question of laziness. It’s all about mindset. Those very people who proudly chug away at full throttle even in an inviting gentle breeze and calm sea are convinced that sailing yachts were invented for two reasons: firstly, to compete in regattas and, secondly, to be taken out for short spins in between. Spins that follow a very strict routine of...

New frontiers for the nautical sector: first the russians, now the chinese

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

It happened, if I’m not mistaken, in the summer of 1988. We set off from Genoa and had already traversed the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian Sea. Having negotiated the Seas of Patras and Corinth, I rejoiced and enjoyed the emotion of the eponymous canal, before finally berthing in the Zea Marina, which is the tourist port of Piraeus. It was there that I saw on the stern of a yacht moored about 30 metres or so from my own a red flag which at first I took to be Turkish. But when I came ashore I...

An economic policy that doesn't address the nautical industry

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

Minister Giulio Tremonti seems to be basing his entire economic policy for 2010 on a passive approach. Italy is simply trusting that the massive economic measures taken by other nations, first and foremost the United States, will work for the Bel Paese before we have to resort to the promised structural reforms which, once again, won’t be implemented. The government does not believe the International Monetary Fund’s opinion that Italy will emerge from recession more slowly than the...

The year to come

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

2010. What kind of a year will it be? That’s the big question on many of our lips right now. There are many unknowns out there and precious few certainties. The effects of what started as a crisis in the financial sector before snowballing to an economy-wide one were sorely felt by the nautical industry. Worse still, the segment had been enjoying dizzying growth for years and, although a correction was clearly coming sooner or later, it arrived at a most unwelcome moment. A snapshot of...

A friend in every port

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

The sea is solitude. And that’s part of the reason it’s so nice to meet old friends, ready to give one a hand, at each port of call. My protector par excellence at Santa Lucia in Naples was Gennarino, one of the three great mainstays of the splendid Circolo Italia (the other two were Alfonso, the man of the house, and Flora, the secretary). The ever-busy Gennarino would never leave the job he was engaged in when I’d arrive but my berth would still be ready and waiting. In...

Azzurra, driving force of an industry?

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

Top-class competitive sailing should create jobs. That’s not my opinion but Azzurra helmsman Mauro Pelaschier’s. I met the bearded Monfalcone-born yachtsman in Nice during the first round of the Louis Vuitton Trophy, the America’s Cup taster that the luxury French fashion house organised after its split from Alinghi boss Ernesto Bertarelli. A stage that was, you will all remember, won by the revived Azzurra. Pelaschier commented on the match race for the Italian national TV...

Blackballer, men who sniff the wind

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

Blackballer were odd men that could sniff the wind and smell an approaching storm. They might also know how to tack their way out of a dead calm before it grabbed the ship in a vice-like grip and drove its crew to madness. On the deserts of the ocean, the blackballers would stay on deck, awaiting to shinny, agile as monkeys, up the rigging of the big main mast. “Which ships?” you might ask. The most beautiful ships of all time, stretching about 70 metres long and generally...

Ucina boss sounds the alarm

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

The headline in Il Giornale on January 18th left little room for doubt: “Rescue us now or we’ll go under.” UCINA President Anton Francesco Albertoni chose the pages of the Italian daily newspaper to sound the alarm to the nation about the state of our nautical industry. The article beneath the headline revealed that 35% percent of the nautical sector’s workforce have been made redundant. Many yards are really struggling while others have just closed their doors in...

The secret treasure of the Atocha

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

It was a big day for the Fisher family: 10 years before, on June 20th 1975, Dirk, one of Mel Fisher’s sons, had disappeared in the Florida Keys while diving for underwater treasure. Mel wasn’t in the mood for fooling around but quoted what had been the motto of Treasure Salvors Inc. for 16 years and more: “Today’s the Day!” Just then the radio crackled to life. “Stop searching: we’ve found it!” said Kane, another of his sons. Those words marked...

Rivers and canals open the doors to nordic dreams

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve had just one experience of river boating. It was on the river Saône in France and I have very fond memories of it. River boating is a pleasant experience: you get aboard, you cast off and detaching from terra firma is the first of many pleasures, just as it always is in any kind of navigation. Then you glide along on the tranquil majestic river, winding your way amid fields and woods. Every now and then you have the diversion of a lock. The lock-keeper does his bit and, while...

No match for a moray

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

In the 1970s weapons of mass destruction rained down upon the marine ecosystem. Hoards of amateur assassins poured down to the shores of the Mediterranean, wrapped in neoprene body armour and armed with Saetta and Minisaetta spring-type spearguns or the very cutting-edge, compressed-air Stens with their grey metal barrels. The professional killers, on the other hand, favoured cyanide or dynamite. The sounds of explosions rang out all day long in July and August. The shallow Calabrian...

Turin on the sea: a dream coming true

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT

Turin-on-the-Sea. Not geographically, you understand. But in spirit. The Piedmonte capital is full of swimming pools and avid swimmers. It also has a very large number of diving fans. It is very much the home of rowing and it has a large fleet of pleasure boaters too. No surprise then that, after years of trying, the first Yachting Club Torino has opened. Yes, yachting, not yacht. This very deliberate distinction underscores the fact that the club and its membership is open to people who...