TAG Heuer Sailor of the Year, voting starts again on March 1!

After the resounding success of the first phase (19,000 votes!), the TAG Heuer Sailor of the Year, the most prestigious award in Italian sailing, gets into the swing of things! There were 100 of them, thanks to your votes there are 50 left and now you can vote for them again on the website http://velistadellanno.giornaledellavela.com/ starting at 1 p.m. on Friday, March 1 (and until noon on March 14). The selection will get tougher, because only 25 will make it to the next stage. In the meantime, we tell you two stories that we liked among the candidates who passed.

WHEN SAILING WINS OVER EVERYTHING
Oris Martino d’Ubaldo, born in 1984, one of Italy’s young designers, on the GS34 he designed finished third in the 151 Miglia X2. He told us, “In 2001 I began to get interested in offshore racing. In 2009 I designed and built a laminated skiff under the guidance of Arch. Vallicelli. In 2010, I graduated from Sapienza University in Rome with a degree in industrial design. In 2011 during the Middle Sea Race I discovered my disease, CRI (chronic renal failure), which forced me on dialysis. This did not stop me from continuing my studies and creating a design team that is now Skyron.

In 2014, thanks to my father’s gift, I received a kidney transplant. After a very hard first year with 12 hospitalizations, I finally relished freedom again in 2016 and decided to return to racing with the project “A Sail for Life” to tell the story of how with transplantation one can live again. Then the opportunity to design with my friends and partners at Skyron the new Grand Soleil 34. In 2018, a small big accomplishment was the launch of Wevo 6.5, the first Mini 650 model (which aims to become mass-produced) that I started designing right in the hospital, just after the transplant.”

FROM PHARMACIST TO FLYING SAILOR
Class of 1986 from Salò, Carlo De Paoli is one of Italy’s top “flying” sailors. He races in the Moth class and in 2018 he won silver at the European Championships. He told us, “My interest in the Moth began in 2012, with the world championship in Champion. Watching and rewatching the footage, I knew right away that it would be the boat for me. In the beginning, my winter weekends on Garda spent on the Moth were little fun: all it took was a bent foil pin to lose your day.

Among the anecdotes I remember most fondly certainly the compliments I received at the world championship in Malcesine, when I finished 12th out of 220: immediately after the best sailors in the America’s Cup, and some of them, including Tom Slingsby, complimented me. I also felt flattered when Checco Bruni called me a year ago to go with him to the world championship in Bermuda as a coach. For someone who is a pharmacist in life and for whom sailing is his greatest passion, these are unforgettable experiences.”

HERE THE COMPLETE RANKING OF THE FIRST PHASE

Our editorial staff will constantly update you with news, posts on Facebook and stories on Instagram, on the Sail Newspaper profile and on the Sailor of the Year profile.

HERE THE DETAILED REGULATIONS OF THE SAILOR OF THE YEAR

THREE VOTES PER PHASE
Starting this year there are two new features: it will be possible to cast three votes per stage (and no longer just one)! You can decide to give three preferences to a single candidate, or divide them among several candidates. For the validation of each vote, you will be asked for your email address: we recommend that you type in the right one; you will find out why in a moment:

VOTE AND WIN!
This year there are two more (mouth-watering) opportunities to vote for your favorite Velista of the Year candidates. Among all the survey voters who will take part in the Evening of Champions (you will be asked to register for the event with the email you provided during voting), on Friday, May 3 at 7 p.m. at theTAG Heuer VELAFestival, will be raffled off a prestigious Aquaracer chronograph from our longtime partner TAG Heuer And, thanks to new partner of the Sailor of the Year Globesailor a long weekend on a boat provided by Sail Italy (May 8-9-10, 2020 in the base of Procida aboard a Beneteau Oceanis 38, 3 cabins and 2 bathrooms, skipper not included).

FIND OUT ALL THE NEWS ABOUT THE SAILOR OF THE YEAR