INTERVIEW “My name is Checco Bruni and I don’t just do regattas.”

We intercept him in one of his rare free moments: he has just returned from a training session on the Moth flying dinghies in Malcesine, ahead of the World Championships that begin the next day (and will finish fifth, ed. Opening photo by Franke / Martina Orsini). Francesco Bruni, Checco Bruni, is relaxed.

Interview with Francesco Checco Bruni

We finally get to talk about the sailor everyone is talking about, Checco Bruni, the man who made us all feel “paisà” with his broken English at the helm of Luna Rossa and his “We are Italians, what the heck!” after winning the Prada Cup final that sealed Luna Rossa’s entry into the Cup final. What was supposed to be a quick interview about Moth racing turned into a real Checco Bruni story, where the Sicilian champion, TAG Heuer 2021 Sailor of the Year, revealed to us his hidden and unsuspected sides.

Checco, let’s start from the beginning. When did you get on a sailboat for the first time?

I can’t remember it, because I was one year old. I grew up on bread and sail in a sailing family. My father, Ubaldo, used to race on the Finn (and now enjoys the Dinghy, ed.), my mother, Giada, was one of the few women who raced on the Flying Juniors paired with my uncle. Her last name is Guccione, a well-known family in the sailing world here in Palermo-they are all sailors! Even when I was one or two years old, my father used to take me “on an excursion” on his Laser, in the waters of Mondello…

Then, we imagine, you will have started like so many on the Optimist….

Yes, at the Roggero di Lauria Rowing Club, but I was not strong. I was a little big for my age. I was in the youth national team, but I never managed to select for World or European Championships. This is not to say that I didn’t have a great time!

Have you ever found yourself afraid on your “bathtub”?

Fear? Zero. The only unpleasant memory is a Christmas Race in Naples in the 1980s, where we raced in the snow and literally froze in the boat (laughs, ed.).

Then what?

When I was 13 I got on the Laser, what has been my big school boat. Laser teaches you so much and has trained great champions. It was on the Laser that I learned the tactics of racing. There I understood how to “smell the wind” and got my first important results… until that 1994 when I found myself in a state of grace: after success at the Mediterranean Games in 1993, I won IYRU World Championship, European and Eurolymp circuit.

A great opponent of yours?

Robert Scheidt above all. It was more times that he beat me, but in light winds I was always a tough nut to crack. Mondello is the home of little wind; breezes are in my DNA. When he invited me to Brazil in 2004 to train with him on the Star (with which Checco participated in the Athens Olympics, ed.), after the session was over every afternoon we had to sail 3-4 miles to get back to land. We were always competing and he would punctually beat me. There had been one time I was able to get there first!

But is it true that some of the world’s greatest sailors were regular guests at your home?

True. At our house (in the Palermo neighborhood of Danisinni, ed.), in the run-up to the 1996 Olympics, people of the caliber of Ben Ainslie, with whom we are still very close friends, Santiago Lange, many Olympians who came to train in Sicily before leaving for Savannah…

He may be your friend Ben Ainslie, but didn’t you kind of enjoy beating him at the Prada Cup?

Boy, did I enjoy it (laughs, ed.)!

Let’s go back to the 1996 Olympics. Your first campaign. What did it represent for you?

Meanwhile, the precise moment I decided I would be a professional sailor. In 1995, I was enrolled in the College of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, while simultaneously participating in Olympic selection. Result: I was doing both badly: exams, few, and in ranking I was behind Negri (Diego, very strong Italian laserist and star player, ed.). It was my father who took me aside, “Checco, it doesn’t matter whether you are an engineer or a sailor. Just choose a path!” I chose sailing.

What about Ubaldo?

My father was overjoyed. “I was hoping, inwardly, that you would choose sailing,” he said. Looking back, I think I made the right choice. I couldn’t see myself being an engineer (laughs, ed.)!

After so many world titles, three Olympics in three different classes (Laser, 49er, Star), America’s Cup campaigns, we think so too. Now that you are a sailing legend, we ask you: who are your myths?

When it comes to talent, to flair, I immediately think of Torben Grael. While if we are talking about stubbornness, about never giving up, I choose Santi Lange. You win an Olympic gold medal, at age 55, after you have had a lung removed for carcinoma. He was a great example for everyone.

What about among non-sailors?

Definitely Alex Zanardi. He is also a great example of someone who never gave up.

You are also a quitter. Have you had some dark moments?

Damned if I had any! I remember the time we went out in a 49er with a friend of mine, a flapper came, we scuffed so many times, broke the mast and came back towed by a fishing boat. I felt so bad that I thought of giving up. Or when the results on the Laser weren’t coming, and I couldn’t find the square to qualify for the Olympics. Total discouragement. Or even when at the America’s Cup in Valencia, just before the Luna Rossa races began, they “parked” me on the dinghy and informed me that I would not be on the crew. When I think about it, I still get chills. But I always knew how to get back up. And instead, when I was informed that I would be the coxswain along with Jimmy (Spithill) in the last Cup, I didn’t want to believe it. It was a daydream.

So far we have talked about the racing Checco. Is there even a cruising Checco?

Minchia, if there is such a thing! When I have free time I spend it on the boat with family and children!

Do you have a boat?

Yes, let’s say I “won” one. An old X-402 that I have owned for almost 30 years.

In what sense “won”? And if you’ve had it for 30 years, that means you’ve owned it since you were 18! Family-rich?

It is a strange story (laughs, ed.). I remember that I had participated in the 1990s in a match-race regatta aboard Swans in Monte Carlo. It was supposed to be a Laureus Cup, if I’m not mistaken. Up for grabs for the winner was an ultra-luxury Mercedes. Other times. The fact is that I won (beating Ben Ainslie, by the way), and I had this super sports coupe on my hands. But what was I going to do with a coupe? I sold the car and with that money I bought myself, in partnership with a friend of mine, this 12-meter used car (the X-402 was in production from 1984 to 1990, ed.).

Which you still use now.

Absolutely yes, I keep it between Palermo and Trapani and as soon as I can I sail with my wife Novella and my children Ubaldo (named after their grandfather) and Vanina (named after a mythical boat of Cino Ricci, but purely by coincidence: a matter of relatives’ names, ed.), to my favorite places.

What are they?

I love the Egadi Islands very much, I think the best places to give still are Cala Fredda in Levanzo and Cala Rossa in Favignana. Unfortunately, I never get to enjoy them out of season, but even with a few people they are a sight to behold. Another place I am in love with is the island of Ustica: the Medico rock is perfect for diving. I very much love to scuba dive in the discovery of the sea. Among the Aeolian Islands, however, I prefer Filicudi with its Faraglione de La Canna.

What does Checco Bruni do on a cruise?

Besides enjoying it, trolling fishing, eating the delicacies that my son Ubaldo cooks, who is far better at cooking than I am (my wife is also good, but she suffers a bit from being in the kitchen below deck)? I enjoy sailing so much.

And this is where my racing hound DNA comes out. Even though we have old dacron sails, which we could safely call rags, I always tend to trim them to the point, to make the boat walk as much as possible. I am a perfectionist. If it were up to me, I would never start the engine!

Do you like board work?

So much. I really love “getting my hands” everywhere, also because on a 12-meter that is more than 30 years old there is always something to do. How to empty water from the bilge. Damn, how it bothers me to have even two drops of water running in the bilge!

What should never be missing aboard Checco Bruni’s boat?

Clear, cool beer. And of course a good bottle of Sicilian wine.

Favorite dish?

I really like to eat so I have a lot of them. But I think a nice plate of spaghetti with sea urchins, paired with a good glass of Tasca d’Almerita white wine, is unrivaled.

We know you love to read a lot. A good book to enjoy on a boat?

A recent one? “Trap at the Bottom of the Sea” by my writer friend Nicola Riolo.

Have you ever been on a cruise with Patrizio Bertelli?

I have never been on a cruise with the “boss,” but I have had the opportunity to be on board with him for vintage boat races. My, what a will to win that man has! We have a very good, open relationship with him. We talk face to face, if he has something to tell me he has my number and he calls me. Bertelli doesn’t mince words, and that is his strength.

Speaking of Cup-what does Checco Bruni want to be when he grows up?

What I narrowly failed to do a few months ago. Bringing the America’s Cup to Italy. We deserve it, Luna Rossa deserves it, Bertelli who has been chasing this dream for years deserves it.

Are you telling us that you will still be at the helm of Luna Rossa?

No. But that I certainly am available. If someone else is chosen, I may be disappointed, but I will live with it if I know he can give the team something more. About one thing, however, you can rest assured. Checco Bruni fights to the last!

Eugene Ruocco

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