From soccer to sailing: Mino Taveri tells us about his Brindisi-Corfu

These days you are more likely to find him commenting on the World Cup on Italia1, but opportunities to meet him at sea are not few. In fact, Mino Taveri, our friend and passionate sailor, has just disembarked from a Sun Odyssey 49, Momix of owner Luigi De Bernardi, with which he participated in the last edition of the Brindisi-Corfu (105 miles). “It was a beautiful race,” Mino tells me, “especially for the first 90 miles during which the wind never left us: we sailed for nine hours under spi with a mistral of 15-20 knots. Great sailing with a full moon and the boat gliding up to 12 knots. A real ride on the waves, a single edge of ninety miles without a single gybe. Everything went great until 15 miles from the finish when the wind gave up on us. At that point, it was about midnight, it took us about eight hours to cover the 15 miles to cross the finish line. Every year it is like this when approaching the Greek coast, the first ones manage to avoid the becalmed, while those behind get caught in the middle irreparably. At that point all we had left to do was try to play on the gusts of air that came a little bit from every direction, and with a lot of patience and concentration we finished seventh in our Holiday Sprint Class and 27th over all. The boat, well equipped for long runs having participated in an ARC, behaved impeccably and took us to Corfu where a big party awaited us with more than a hundred participating crews.”

A RESPECTABLE GALLEY
Mino’s passion for sailing can be clearly heard in his voice, the way he tells me about his regatta. “At the start I was in the cockpit at the winches, then during the race I moved to the keyboard to take care of the halyards. We are a very close-knit crew of nine, nine friends of a group who come together every year for this regatta that starts from our land, Apulia, to reach Greece. And as good Apulians, we pay very special attention to the galley. Everyone brings some special dish, and every hour of the day and night is good for a snack and a drink-we had everything on board. Rice with potatoes and mussels, stuffed conchiglioni, meatballs, lasagna, pastiera, I’m sure if we had landed the galley we would have gained at least three knots! Then again, in windless moments, something had to be done!”

THE RESULTS OF THE REGATTA
It goes to Moon Shine (pictured above), the Cori 52 of Edoardo Ziccarelli (LNI Pesaro), the victory in real and the overall victory in plywood of the XXIX Brindisi-Corfù ahead of the Farr 45 High Five Polimor and to the Ice Yacht 62 Buena Vista of owner Luigi Pannarale. In ORC C the Grand Soleil 40 Splash won. In the Maxi class, however, Idrusa, Paolo Montefusco’s Farr 80, prevailed ahead of skipper Alberto Leghissa’s Team Sistiana.