Sailor of the Year 2024, find out all the nominees (and vote for them from tomorrow!).

“Off to the televote!” we would say if we were at the Sanremo Festival. This is the Oscars of Italian Sailing but the concept is the same. Starting today, find all 64 nominees for Sailor of the Year 2024 (this year powered by Raymarine) at
velistadellanno.giornaledellavela.com
: starting tomorrow at 1 p.m. you can vote for them (there is time until May 20 at 12 noon). For each category in the competition (Sailor of the Year, Passion, Owner, Innovation, Young) you can express a preference and the five with the most votes will advance to the finals. From these, the Jury of the Journal of Sailing will choose the overall winners and award them in a big event on May 25, details of which we will reveal later(all the info on the rules here).

• DISCOVER ALL THE NOMINEES FOR SAILOR OF THE YEAR

Sailor of the Year Most Voted. Vote-and be voted for!

But it doesn’t work that way for all categories. There is the award given in the unquestionable judgment of the GdV, the career award, “The Epic Sailor of the Year”: this year it goes to Gianni Cariboni (and in the issue on newsstands, the May one, find out why!), on his fortieth anniversary with his company world excellence in hydraulics and hydraulics for sailboats.

And then there is this year’s big news: the parallel category of “Sailor of the Year Most Voted” (where the person who gets the most votes wins, period) for which we collected many nominations.

What did we do? We asked the people of Italian sailing to tell us who was worthy of a nomination for Sailor of the Year. It was possible to self-nominate or nominate someone on the award website, and as we expected we received names galore. Some-and there were quite a few of them-were among the candidates in the regular categories of the Sailor of the Year, as they were already part of the panel of candidates chosen for 2024 by the GdV. The others, on the other hand, compete for the Most Voted Sailor of the Year where it is mainly the fanbase that counts: the one who is most followed and voted for wins, not necessarily the one who has achieved the best results in the year. You will find well-known names, others less well known but with undoubtedly interesting stories.

And what a great prize that wins whoever, at the close of voting (on May 20), will have obtained the highest number of preferences! A oilskin raffled off by our friends at
Musto
, such as. BR2 Offshore Jacket complete with dungarees.

The biggest celebration of Italian sailing

The Most Voted award is presented to the winner as part of the Evening of Champions: yep, the second new feature this year is the “live” return of the Sailor of the Year.

• DISCOVER ALL THE NOMINEES FOR SAILOR OF THE YEAR

On Saturday, May 25 at Marina Cala de’ Medici, one of the most beautiful places on the Tuscan coast, an exceptional event takes place: the Evening of Champions. In the beating heart of the Marina, the main square, the winners of the Sailor of the Year are honored in an Oscar-style evening open to the public. Everyone, but everyone is invited to participate. It is also the occasion of the awards ceremony of the Tuscan leg of the VELA Cup, Italy’s busiest sailing regatta/festival circuit.

The Evening of Champions is attended by everyone from Italy who can meet, celebrate, chat and take a selfie with the best Sailors of the Year. An unmissable opportunity to meet the big players in all of sailing. From oceanic to America’s Cup, from Olympic athletes to offshore. And then sailors, navigators, explorers, professionals who accomplished something exceptional, out of the ordinary.

Protagonists of the Evening of Champions will also be all the VELA Cup participants and all the enthusiasts who will arrive at Cala de’ Medici for the event.
Appointment for all, then at Marina Cala de’ Medici on May 25 from 6 p.m. for the biggest party of Italian sailing.

Sailor of the Year – The Oscars of Sailing

In the heat of telling you all the news, we almost forgot to emphasize the importance of the Sailor of the Year, the most coveted award in Italian sailing given by GdV since 1991. You only need to scroll through the roll of honor to immediately understand the caliber of the sailors who, from 1991 to the present, have won the title.

It all started with Giorgino Zuccoli, going through the only foreigner to win the oar (Paul Cayard, for the exploits of the Moro di Venezia), the four times of Alessandra Sensini, Giovanni Soldini, Vincenzo Onorato, Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti, and the multi-award-winning Ambrogio Beccaria. Who wins this year you find out by coming to the Evening of Champions. We are waiting for you! But in the meantime … starting tomorrow … vote, vote, vote!

• DISCOVER ALL THE NOMINEES FOR SAILOR OF THE YEAR