Starring in the cinema is a superboat, the Wally Esense. To be seen to dream

Cinema seems to have finally realized that sailing is a spectacle that deserves to be brought to the big screen. Coming out in theaters Oct. 30 is “Last Summer,” filmed In Puglia aboard one of the most beautiful boats ever built, the 43-meter Wally Esense. It is a testament to the unusual attention that cinema is giving to the world of sailing. Just remember among recent releases “In Solitaire” which recounts a soloist’s adventure in the Vendèe Globe, the Round-the-World Sailing Race. Not to mention “All is lost” starring Robert Redford as an old sailor who travels the seas alone in his 12-footer and stumbles into a series of incredible adventures that lead him to find himself on a life raft. But let’s talk about this new film coming out.

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THE REAL STAR OF THE MOVIE IS THE BOAT
The real star of “Last Summer” is Esense, the 43-footer built by Wally Yachts to a design by Bill Tripp, a mix of elegance and technology, of essential luxury made of sand-colored teak and carbon. A unique sailboat, all the more so because the people who had it built entrusted the design to the style of Odile Decq. And it was on this one location that director Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli shot Last Summer, his first feature film, written with cartoonist Igort and writer Banana Yoshimoto.

The whole film takes place on this boat that, for four days, sailing in the Salento sea, becomes the scene of a reconciliation and a farewell. The one between a mother, Naomi, a Japanese woman played by Rinko Kikuchi (the actress chosen by Iñárritu for the Japanese episode of Babel), and her six-year-old son Kenzaburo (Ken Brady, an English actor with a Japanese mother): as an effect of a troubled divorce, the court ruled that Naomi is not adequate as a mother, and so the child was given to his father’s rich and powerful family. These few days they will spend alone traveling on a boat are the last chance offered to mother and son to find each other before saying goodbye. “A boat like this gives the dimension of a very luxurious prison on which the drama of separation takes place. I liked the contrast between that chic atmosphere and the tragedy that takes place under the surface of beauty,” Seràgnoli says.

ESENSE, A MEGAVILLA BY THE SEA
Esense is a Wally 143 that went to sea in July 2007. The hull, is made entirely of pre-preg carbon, the design is by American Bill Tripp, from whom hulls such as the Baltic 50, numerous Uldb (Ultra Light Displacement Boats) and a series of megasailers all marked by the pursuit of speed. The interior design, on the other hand, is the work of an archistar: French architect Odile Decq, whose first experience in yachting is in yachting but, for example, she designed the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome.

From these protagonists, combined with Wally-style, Esense, a unique boat, was born. Especially on deck, which, as Luca Bassani patron of Wally says, “is the big news of this boat.” Absolutely free, apart from the two wheelhouses with the instrument console in the center, Esense’s bridge has eliminated stanchions and draylines; all rigging is controlled by the “Magic Trim” system and only four winches at the foot of the mast. The only elements that interrupt the deck plan are the entry hatch below deck and the guest cockpit abutting the mast with a C-shaped sofa and table. In the stern is a terrace, which reaches 21 square meters, and the large glazed saloon.

57-meter carbon mast; self-tacking jib; boom with internal furler for mainsail; partially movable daggerboard (goes from four meters to six upwind); 3DL sails by North Sails; Harken deck equipment, Cariboni/Wally hydraulics. 140-ton sloop rigging including 48 tons ballast.

Capable, however, of racer-worthy performance, even though Esense has no regatta ambitions but Atlantic possibilities. And which, again on deck, has another surprise in store, with interior lighting prisms placed on the perimeter of the deck: “I wanted the light below deck to arrive obliquely thanks to the prisms placed on the deck,” points out Odile Decq, who set the rooms on space and brightness. Starting with the large aft salon with the glass window overlooking the terrace-a true loft on the sea. An open space in which, thanks to movable panels, two guest cabins can be made. A third is aft of the central technical room, which also houses the keel box and all systems. The owner’s suite, forward of the mast, also includes a music room and bathroom with tub, and occupies the area forward of the mast.