A remembrance of Aldo Paravicini, perfect sailor/owner

It was a rainy day in May 1976. In the editorial office of the Journal of Sailing, Aldo Paravicini Crespi introduces himself. I had not seen him since we had taken a Christmas vacation together on a boat in Greece, on an 11-meter Jeanneau with 11 people aboard, a few years earlier.

“Luca,” he tells me, “we bought a Show 29. Look at these photos, they came out in Sardinia with mistral“. Dressed more like a farmer than a sailor (he loved the countryside as well as the sea), he pulls out a small box with slides (photos from back then). I look at them and stand speechless. “You are being your usual modest self, these pictures are amazing,” I say to Aldo. Said and done, we take down the cover that was about to go to press and put his boat on the front page, with three coats of reefing and a storm bow. You can see it (June 1976 issue) here on the side.

Aldo (and his twin brother Luke) were always grateful. And I to them. For Aldo, sailing was a healthy, true, genuine passion. He could have had luxurious and far larger boats than he did. But he was not like that. He had to, as a true pure enthusiast, put his hands in it, his face in it, never flaunting it. Navigating, discovering places. Facing what the sea holds in store for you was his life manual. The same attitude he had toward the land he tended with equal passion on the family estate, Zelata. He had become over the years the perfect sailor/shipman. That’s why I loved him. He left on May 14. Hi Aldo.

Luca Oriani

WHO WAS ALDO PARAVICINI CRESPI
Aldo Paravicini Crespi, 65, died May 14 of a probable illness as he was driving back to the Zelata estate in the province of Pavia. His farm, Cascine Orsine, was based there, where he produced wonderful natural products, from yogurt to cheese together with his mother, 97-year-old Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi (honorary president of FAI).

Passionate about sailing from an early age, he has owned, with his twin brother Luca, a variety of boats, from the Show 29 of the 1970s to a bizarre little trimaran and the personally cared-for boats he built at the Vismara shipyard. The last one is the Twin. A 56-footer designed by Mark Mills that encapsulates all his knowledge of boats, accumulated over decades of sailing. The Mediterranean had no secrets for him, but his heart was always in northern Sardinia, where the family had a house hidden among the lightless Sardinian rocks. In that pirate bay Aldo was in his natural habitat of pristine nature and powerful sea.

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