A golden cotter pin that hides a beautiful story

When Federico Michetti, president of Melges Europe and a successful team manager (Joe Fly, Robertissima and many others his “clients”) dropped by the newsroom to give us a long interview (you will find it in the next issue of the Sailing Journal), we were intrigued by an object he jealously guards around his neck. Looking at it more closely, we thought we saw the outline of a cotter pin. A golden cotter pin that conceals a moving story.

THE STORY OF THE GOLDEN COTTER PIN
“This cotter pin,” Michetti told us, “was given to me in Christmas 2000 by Giorgio Zuccoli. Together with him, who was battling the disease that would take him away a few months later (Zuccoli passed away on March 27, 2001, ed.), I had won the Melges 24 World Championship in La Rochelle on September of that year. For Giorgio, that World Cup was the challenge of a lifetime. He had been trying to win the Melges World Championship title for some time and had already won two silvers: he for one knew that this would be his last chance.” “During a Worlds regatta,” Michetti continued, “the jib would not unfurl while I, reaching into my pockets and feeling a cotter pin, discovered with regret that I was the cause of the problem: I had forgotten to put it on the furler. Without thinking, and without despair, I jumped to the bow and resolved the situation in extremis. So at Christmas, George presented me with this golden cotter pin, telling me “everyone makes mistakes: but very few can fix them right away.” He was a great person before he was a great sailor.”

GREAT GIORGINO
A great person and sailor who left a huge void and whom we celebrate with a beautiful photo: the image of Giorgio’s last great feat, at the helm of his Melges 24, his face already hollowed by the evil that would shortly take him away, embraced by his teammates after winning the World Championship in La Rochelle.

WHO WAS GIORGIO ZUCCOLI
Giorgio Zuccoli (Giorgino) – (Iseo February 17, 1958 – Borgonato March 27, 2001). He was between the 1980s and 1990s an internationally renowned sailor and one of the world’s most highly regarded sailmakers (his sails for the Tornado Class won Gold Medals in Barcelona and Atlanta). A short but intense life that began on Lake Iseo when little Giorgio began with his first trips aboard his father Gianni’s Flying, between Iseo, Sulzano and Monteisola, and then participated in the National Championships where he collected his first successes and medals, in the 420 Class, a specialist of catamarans and in particular in the Olympic Tornado Class, he was three times in the medal zone (in 1987, 1988 and 1989) and, won the World Title in Cagliari in 1991. He participated in two Olympics, in Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992 here shared with Isean bowman Angelo Glisoni. In 1993 he won the Centomiglia del Garda at the helm of the Classe Libera Dimore, setting an unbeaten historical record in six hours and five minutes. At the age of 42, in September 2000, already tried by illness, he won the last and most important title, the most deserved, the most poignant: the Gold Medal at the World, in the Melges 24 Class, on the Atlantic in La Rochelle, France beating a fleet of more than a hundred boats, a much-desired title that he chased for a long time and hit after two Silver Medals. In memory of the late champion, the Province of Brescia and the Municipality of Iseo will name the gymnasium of the Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore Giacomo Antonietti ITCG Liceo IPIA in Iseo after Giorgio Zuccoli.

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