The backstage of the podcast on Azzurra (narrated by its author)

The podcast “Azzurra, the wake of a dream,” produced by Pianozero Media and recommended by the Journal of Sailing is having great success. We told you why you absolutely must listen to it, then we revealed the background of the meeting between podcast co-author Sara Canali and legend Cino Ricci. Today – the date, Boxing Day, is not coincidental – we asked Stefano Vegliani, co-author of the podcast (who in the early days of a brilliant career in sports journalism also worked for the Giornale della Vela), to tell us about the “backstage” of “Azzurra, the wake of a dream.”

“How I found myself recording locked in a closet.”

For me, who likes to listen to podcasts the idea of doing one has always crossed my mind. A nice one, with the right theme song, background noises, music cue, audio inserts. Of course to do all this you need a production company, a recording studio, in short you need a budget. Sponsor.

So in 2021 I tried to come up with a podcast about the America’s Cup that was about to start in Auckland, but I didn’t have much commercial luck. But I ended up doing it anyway, very homemade: I bought a good microphone on Amazon, looked up some effects on the Internet the theme song was made by a speaker friend.

Racing in the middle of the Italian night helped me to publish in the morning an account of what had happened for those who had not set their alarms for 3 a.m., then I added a few historical episodes. So from January 15 with the first round of the World Series until March 17, the day Peter Burling raised the Old Pitcher.

We were locked in the house, Luna Rossa kept us company. That podcast was called “The Endless Challenge,” after my book that came out in early 2000 as the silver bullet battled America One and won the Louis Vuitton Cup. Red Moon mania had exploded, people were staying up at night, the book was in the windows of every bookstore in Italy. The book, now a vintage work, is hard to find, but on major platforms the podcast is still there.

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My friend Lamberto Cesari, a prestigious contributor on these pages is one of the most frequent podcast consumers I know. He when he drives around in the car instead of music listens to an audio content and has always insisted that my weekly interviews in the Sai2u column that are posted on OaSport’s you tube channel not only be a video content but also be uploaded to the platforms dedicated to audio. I know the project is in the publisher’s plans, but so far it has not happened.

Personally, I am a Francesco Costa baby who I listen to every morning on Morning as a Post subscriber. I think podcasts are really one of the most interesting new developments in the recent news landscape. In short, the idea of trying again but in a less artisanal way had never left me.

So when social media showed me that Sara Canali, a smart and likeable young colleague whom I have known for years because she covers sports for several news outlets, was an active part of a production company that was jumping into the world of audio content, I contacted her. Plan Zero media is, as they say today, a startup.

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Azzurra. The podcast takes shape

So on April 13, 2023, I write the following message to her in DM on Instagram: “Hi Sara! How are you? Can your podcast editors ever be interested in something about sailing? Azzurra’s 40th falls this year. Next year is the America’s Cup” Response, “Hi Ste!!! My podcast publishers…it’s me and some partners. We created Pianozero and we are working a lot! I like the idea….”

Thus began an exchange of messages between Instagram and WhatsApp. We tried to ask some friends involved in companies in the boating world if there was any possibility of sponsorship, but we were out of luck. Everyone liked the idea though, I sent a canvas of ideas, we created a Drive file to put them together. Especially thinking about the people to be interviewed: which Cino Ricci and Mauro Pelaschier could not miss.

Meanwhile, in June I was in Newport where the Ocean race leg is about to start to interview Francesca Clapcich for Il Foglio Sportivo. In Newport is Margherita Bottini, who was present that June 18, 1983, when Azzurra won the first Louis Vuitton Cup race against the French, and I record her memories that will be used to mount a Zero episode.

In short, the project takes shape, we make a call with the whole Piano Zero Media team: Sara, Niccolò Maria Santi and Michele Catalano, with us also Davide de Benedetti who will take care of the sound design.

The protagonists of the podcast

As chance would have it, Sarà has to go to Riccione for a Padel event and tells me he would have time to join Cino in Ravenna. I am in New York where I spend most of my time now, so going to Cino’s is impossible for me. I call Cino and tell him that a girl is coming to record an interview. How Sara was received by Cino you have already read about in her story. The interview takes place on the Ravenna New York axis with the phone on speaker phone. Cino despite his age loves to tell by filling the anecdotes with his Romagna soul: we have the most important part of the podcast.

Scrolling through various clips on You Tube I find contributions from Prince Aga Khan, lawyer Gianni Agnelli, and Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. Important original fragments in the construction of our narrative. Again thanks to the net I find a home number of Engineer Marco Cobau who built Azzurra at Officine Meccaniche in Pesaro: “it just happens to be here I’ll leave her cell phone.” I find out that Cobau is originally from the island of Krk, like my family, and that he knows my father’s books. Emotion. Then the phone interview will be handled by Sara. I meet Andrea Vallicelli and Jacopo Marchi. You can start preparing the first episode.

We do the texts four-handedly, I throw down a plot after Sara has uncoiled the interviews, she prepares the text to which I give a final revision making sure, above all, that the technical terminology is correct.

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Azzurra. Without a microphone–I’m left with the closet.

Passing through Milan, I meet Mauro Pelaschier with whom it is always pleasant to have a chat; his contribution is of course crucial. It is now a matter of recording the texts for the episodes, but in the meantime I returned to New York without having found that microphone I bought in 2020. This is a problem because various attempts to record with other microphones have disastrous results. Fortunately, my colleague Rosanna Piturru, a former Tg5 correspondent from Genoa who now lives in New York has a small microphone that attaches to the phone, but a great brand. To optimize the result I register locked inside a closet. So we get a good result. In short we made it, now all that remains is to wait for Davide De Benedetti’s excellent work in editing.

You can listen to the result at the link below. Azzurra is mostly a memory for us who are of a certain age. It has changed the lives of many, especially Italian sailors who are among the most highly regarded today. It changed it for me too, thanks to the sudden popularity of sailing I started to collaborate on Channel 5, a collaboration that became a regular job. Twenty-nine years of traveling the world: I have chased Tomba, chronicled Federica Pellegrini’s records, been an envoy to seven editions of the America’s Cup and fourteen Olympics. Thank you Azzurra.

Stephen Vegliani

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