Ocean Race, 50 years at sea: from the pioneer Carlin to the film edition and flying boats

The first was Sayula II. A Swan 65 (a few centimeters less than 20 meters), flew the Mexican flag, a nation that neither before nor after would have written memorable pages of sailing. But in that distant 1973 Ramon Carlin’s boat was the fastest (based on length) to return to England and cross the finish line in the first crewed round the world to which a British beer brand had given the name The Whitbread Race. It was much more than a regatta, it was a juice of adventure, free-range and mysterious. With the skipper’s wife who at each stage filled the crew’s galley with delicacies, with occasional communications and a lot of initiative. The oldest and most famous crewed regatta started with 17 boats at the start, with a stopover, A series of stop and go in the ports that later became iconic: from South Africa, to New Zealand, from China, to India up to Brazil. And the world tour which in the meantime changed its name (today it is The Ocean Race) adapting to a changing world. The openings to new sailing destinations, the Chinese ones or those of the Emirates. That first triumph, totally unexpected in 2016, has also become a film: Sunday sailors, precisely to tell a pioneering phenomenon that over time has been replaced by technology and specialization. Up to the flying boats, equipped with foils (ie those “wings” that make them take off on the water). From open boats subject to cold or rain. Up to today’s boats “closed” and equipped with satellite connections.

Technology

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Carbon hulls conducted (and also dependent) on powerful computers, capable of sailing the 7 seas with a single nightmare, hitting a UFO (semi-submerged and floating objects that can even make you sink). In 1973 marine pollution was not comparable to the current one, with the 3-4 continents of plastic and other waste floating in the ocean asphyxiating the seas.

In Port Race

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In this changing world, in this modern and slightly more contrived sail, adventure is different. The 50 years of history remain and an evolutionary path that with Genoa, The Grand Finale enters a new dimension. For the first time in the Mediterranean, for the first time in Italy. A regatta born in the ocean that right in contact with the Superba (the first to nickname it like this was Francesco Petrarca, who wrote in 1358: You will see a royal city, leaning against an alpine hill, superb for men and for walls, whose only appearance indicates lady of the sea) you want to relaunch. Genoa is back as queen of the seas. They fly to oxygenate a regatta with so much history, but also with some worries. The arrival in the Old Port, in conjunction with the new Waterfront and the other initiatives, are intended to give new life and new adrenaline. In the last 50 years the world’s seas have become much less mysterious. Even the most distant islands look like the beaches behind the house. The world is “smaller” and Genoa is called upon to expand it, with a new finish in the Mediterranean and a final leg that will take the boats from The Hague (Netherlands) to Liguria. While Genoa is enjoying these last days of anxious waiting (arrival on June 24th or 25th depending on the weather conditions) today we are back on the water for the In-Port Race in Aarhus, Denmark, before leaving on Thursday 8th for Holland. Aor Team Genova is also back in the regatta (it is a Vor65 that participates only in the Sprint edition of this tour, 3 stages instead of 7) with three Italians on board: Cecilia Zorzi (who took part in the first stage), Claudia Rossi (Italian offshore sailing) and Andrea Pendibene, oceanic navigator of the Navy. Another novelty to give oxygen and ideas to the legend of sailing.