40 YEARS OF SAILING STORIES Giorgio Bocca “My son… skipper.”

A great signature of Italian journalism, Giorgio Bocca, recounts in 1982 with his masterful semi-serious register how hard life is for the father of a young sailor full of sacred fire

“The complicated affair begins in June with the program: Skipper,

intended as his sailor and regatta-racing son, one day pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and a little on the bruise, which is his coloring of when he strongly wants to, announces his schedule for this vacation…

July 3-15 Mouths, don’t ask which ones, for one like that there are only Bonifacio’s,

July 16-30 Giraglia on Sycamore… In August he goes to the Emerald Coast for the Sardinia Cup or something like that. The month ends with a short ride on our miserable seven-meter … then the program extends but with some doubt, there is a Caribbean with question mark. “For the Caribbean you haven’t decided yet?”, “I’m waiting for a phone call from Rocco,” he says, livid. Phone calls are leaving and arriving throughout the first half of July, by the hundreds, and Skipper is waiting for them.

That’s right, for the Mouths has gone bust…. The second half of July arrives … and you realize that the drama of the Giraglia has now been consummated: the two who were supposed to transport Sycamore to Toulon are fugitives, perhaps sudden love, perhaps diarrhea.

So Skipper is forcibly here on our seven-meter boat. “Could a small beer be had?” “No, he says, I don’t keep beers on board anymore.” Also gone are the pillows, the canned goods and everything that clutters and shifts to your utter indifference perhaps, but not for those who care about the two or three degrees of upwind… But why, if the Tigullio winter regattas were alternately postponed due to heavy seas or total becalmedness?

But don’t say that, it’s not appropriate.”

WHO IS GIORGIO BOCCA

Giorgio Bocca (1920-2011) was one of the most influential and followed Italian journalists. He complemented his career as a journalist with that of a writer, focusing mainly on social problems. A discreet sailor, in this piece he humorously mocks not only his son, but all “over-the-top sailors”

DISCOVER THE “STORIES OF 40 YEARS OF SAILING”