Come meet the great sailors and their stories, chat with your legends, treasure their advice, and then, icing on the cake, find out who will be the 2017 Sailor of the Year in the spectacular Evening of Champions. This, in a nutshell, is what will happen during the Day of Champions at the TAG Heuer VELAFestival in Santa Margherita Ligure (May 4-7), scheduled for May 5.
MEETS THE GREAT SAILORS
We are working for you, and the names of some of the “distinguished” people you may meet we are already revealing: Tommaso Chieffi (27 world titles won), Flavio Favini, Matteo Miceli. We mentioned them not by chance: all three won the Sailor of the Year (here theRoll of Honor) and this year, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the most prestigious award in Italian sailing, we decided to celebrate them in a Hall of Fame exhibition (you can also discover their badass stories in the “Hall of Fame” section of the Sailing Newspaper website.). At 3 p.m. Friday, as an “appetizer” to the Evening of Champions, an event-tribute to a great of Italian sailing will be staged, which we won’t reveal for now so as not to spoil the surprise. Among the other “bigs,” confirmed the presence of Vincenzo Onorato, Mauro Pelaschier,
VOTE FOR SAILOR OF THE YEAR
Meanwhile, the Velista of the Year voting is continuing unabated, and in this second phase, the one from which the 25 candidates for the “semifinal” will emerge on March 15 (the poll closes at noon) (rules are at the bottom), you have already given your favorites nearly 5,000 votes. If you have not already done so, you can vote for them below (you can vote for only one candidate). Leading the ranking is Calabrian kiter Tony Cili followed by Giuseppe Fornich, owner of GS 37 Sagola Biotrading and Gaetano Mura.
| Modello | Cantiere Costruttore | Lunghezza (M) (LOA) | Anno di Progetto | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HALLBERG RASSY 36 MK I | Hallberg Rassy | 10.87 | 1989 | ||
| HALLBERG RASSY 382 | Hallberg Rassy | 11.62 | 1984 | ||
| HALLBERG RASSY 41 | Hallberg Rassy | 12.5 | 1981 | ||
| HALLBERG RASSY 42 (F) | Hallberg Rassy | 13.22 | 1990 | ||
| HALLBERG RASSY 46 | Hallberg Rassy | 14.78 | 1995 |
HOW THE SAILOR OF THE YEAR WORKS
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
Each of the winners will be awarded a TAG Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 5 high-precision waterproof chronograph (pictured opposite), capable of withstanding depths of up to 300 meters.
For any information regarding the Sailor of the Year, please write to us at speciali@panamaeditore.it
