Pierpaolo Ballerini, the loner who… would win the Giraglia
THE PERFECT GIFT!
Give or treat yourself to a subscription to the print + digital Journal of Sailing and for only 69 euros a year you get the magazine at home plus read it on your PC, smartphone and tablet. With a sea of advantages.
How do you win the Giraglia solo. if your boat is less competitive than the others, if your opponents are far more titled than you are, and if you are one of those who “okay, race but not too much” (and you bring good food on board and even have a bicycle)? With the only card left in your hand: racing tactics.
OTHER THAN MAGIC CARPET CUBED!
And so it happened that Pierpaolo Ballerini, aboard his Azuree 33 Azuree, won the Giraglia Solo Race (For the first time at the Giraglia Rolex Cup offshore regatta – 243 miles on the Saint Tropez – Giraglia – Genoa route – there was a category reserved for solo sailors): there were only three solo sailors entered (the other two were Richard Delpeut on the JPK 9.60 Walili and Frederic Ponsenard on the A35 Coco, who have great sailing behind them, such as the Transquadra: the latter even won it in 2012), but that’s not the point. Ballerini finished 47th in real time, and if the soloists had been included in the IRC Overall ranking, “Azuree would have finished in the top.” These are the words of Pierpaolo who keeps a low profile, but the “nerds” of compensated time, IRC ratings in hand, claim he would have won the long, ahead of Lindsay Owen-Jones’ mammoth WallyCento Magic Carpet Cubed. Ballerini is proving to be a particularly skilled navigator: at the last Rolex Middle Sea Race he finished fourth overall, winning among the “double-handed” (along with him Stig Westergaard).
THE WINNING MOVE
“After an unexciting start, I overtook La Fourmigue and reached the Giraglia rock in the middle of the fleet, around 100th position. My opponents were ahead.” Then the stroke of genius: “Consulting Meteo Lamma, I noted that a direct course toward Genoa would necessarily mean passing inside a becalmed bubble. So, after a reasoned choice (Ballerini was the only one who opted for this solution), I decided to set a course for La Spezia, with the walls different from the other boats, leaving the orthodromic by at least 15 miles: it turned out to be a winning move. While everyone stayed becalmed for at least five to six hours, I never went below 4 to 5 knots, arriving in Genoa in just over 50 hours, almost nine hours ahead of Walili and Coco and leaving behind so many crewed boats far more pulled than mine.” That’s the beauty of the Giraglia: the last word is never said.
Share:
Check out the latest issue
Are you already a subscriber?
Ultimi annunci
Our social
Sign up for our Newsletter
We give you a gift
Sailing, its stories, all boats, accessories. Sign up now for our free newsletter and receive the best news selected by the Sailing Newspaper editorial staff each week. Plus we give you one month of GdV digitally on PC, Tablet, Smartphone. Enter your email below, agree to the Privacy Policy and click the “sign me up” button. You will receive a code to activate your month of GdV for free!
You may also be interested in.
ARC Rally, what a victory for Picomole! And there is an air of record…
Arrival time in St. Lucia, Caribbean, for the ARC, the Atlantic rally, which has now become, at least for part of the fleet, the larger cruisers and the Racing category, for all intents and purposes a regatta, since the handicap
ARC Dream, Voices from the Ocean by Picomole, Remax One and GG
We have entered the final phase of this ARC Rally Atlantic for Cruisers, the adventure for those who dream of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary Islands to St. Lucia, even with “normal” boats, perhaps trying to make an
Jules Verne Trophy: Alexia Barrier’s terrible girls on record attack
Francis Joyon lo holds since 2017, and it is one of the hardest records in the history of sailing: we are talking about the Jules Verne Trophy, the round-the-world sailing race completed in 2017 by the Ultim (30-meter) class trimaran
For the first time, Italy (without Ruggero Tita) is on the podium at SailGP
Italy was there, in a big way. The change of roles on board(out of multiple Olympic champion Ruggero Tita as driver, in with New Zealand’s Phil Robertson, in with 49erFX class Olympic athlete Jana Germani as strategist) worked. For the
