Santiago Lange and Max Sirena are waiting for you at the Galata Museo del Mare!

Argentine sailing phenom Santi Lange, fresh off an Olympic gold medal on the Nacra 17 after beating cancer (for which he had a lung removed), and Max Sirena, Luna Rossa’s skipper at the next America’s Cup. They are two of the protagonists of the series “Meetings in Blue. Men, Women and Sea Stories” organized by the Galata Museo del Mare in Genoa, you can meet them in person!

Seven appointments for the public with prominent national and international personalities from the world of sports, shipping and boating. All meetings, lasting about an hour, will be held on Thursdays at 6 p.m. in the Museum Auditorium and will be free admission subject to availability. Afterwards, the audience will be able to meet the evening’s protagonists over an aperitif.

On Feb. 28 it is Max Sirena’s turn while the meeting with Lange is set for April 18.

THE REVIEW IN DETAIL
The review, aimed at promoting the culture of the sea in its various forms but also to give a signal of the vitality of Genoa and Liguria in this critical phase that the territory is going through, is curated by journalist and writer Fabio Pozzo with university lecturer and writer Nicolò Carnimeo, former creators of “Mare d’inchiostro-Festival of sea stories,” who will interview guests during “Meetings in Blue.”

The initiative “Encounters in Blue. Men, women and stories of the sea” was strongly supported by Mu.MA Istituzione Musei del Mare e delle Migrazioni, Associazione Promotori Musei del Mare onlus, Costa Edutainment spa and realized thanks also to the contribution of the Cambiaso Risso Group and UCINA Confindustria Nautica and the support of the Montallegro Nursing Home and the historic home Palazzo Grillo. Finally, the series of meetings boasts the patronage of the Italian Yacht Club with which Mu.MA has signed a memorandum of understanding for the joint promotion of activities for the year 2019.

Opening the show on Thursday, Jan. 31, is freediver and world record holder Alessia Zecchini, who is currently the “deepest woman in the world” with her -107 meters, the CWT constant buoyancy single-fin dive record she captured last July in the waters of Long Island in the Bahamas.

On Feb. 28, it will be the turn of sailor Max Sirena, the skipper of Luna Rossa, who will tell the latest news and background of the new challenge launched by the Italian team at the next America’s Cup.

March 28 Hugo Vau, the Portuguese surfer who in January in Nazaré, the European capital of giant waves, rode “Big Mama,” a wall of water about 35 meters high, will meet with attendees to describe what it’s like and how it comes to be the athlete who surfed what is considered the largest wave in the history of the sport.

On Thursday, April 18, also at 6 p.m., in conjunction with the Olympic Classes World Cup hosted by Genoa, another big name in sailing, that of Santiago Lange, the sailor who in 2016 at age 54, after beating a cancer that caused him to have his left lung removed, won the gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in the Nacra17 class, the flying catamarans. Lange will dialogue with the audience, testifying how his commitment to sports has given him the strength to overcome the disease and look forward (“Life is wonderful,” is one of his favorite phrases) and how age is just a number: he is now training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

On May 30 to take the stage at Meetings in Blue will be. Cecilia Eckelmann Battistello, a historical figure in international shipping and Italian ports, president of Contship Italia, a company that celebrates just this year half a century of life, and that in our country has terminals in Gioia Tauro, La Spezia, Ravenna, Cagliari, Salerno and the Milan-Melzo intermodal center.

June 20 will be the turn of Michael Bates, better known as Michael of Sealand, the entrepreneur who claims the title of prince of Sealand, the micronation founded by his father Paddy Roy in 1967, who will tell the incredible story of this artificial platform created off the coast of England for defense purposes by the British government on which a “Principality with independent sovereignty” was proclaimed, minting currency and issuing passports.

Closing the first round of Meetings in Blue, on Sept. 19, on the opening day of the 59th Boat Show, the largest in the Mediterranean, the host will be Norberto Ferretti, co-founder and former chairman of Ferretti Group, the boating pioneer returning to the scene in the name of his passion for boats and the sea.