Why Chestress 3, a 2009 12-meter, won the 151 Mile

He is the hero of the moment. We are talking about Giancarlo Ghislanzoni’s“small” J/122 cruiser-racer , Chestress 3, the overall ORC winner of the 151 Miglia (the 151-mile Tuscan offshore regatta that this year took place on the Marina di Pisa – Pianosa – Montecristo – Formiche di Grosseto – Punta Ala course). He won ahead of the Maxis and the biggest Class A racers.

How to win the “longs” with a 12-meter 15-year-old

How could a 12-meter (12.19 x 3.64 m) from as far back as 2009 (but Johnstone’s design dates back to 2006), with only “Sunday sailors” (owner’s words) on board, get the better of far longer and fiercer racing beasts like Swan 45, Swan 42, Farr 45? We asked Ghislanzoni, a Genoese who moved to Milan, 63 years old, a prominent past in McKinsey and now on the board of Leonardo, directly .

Giancarlo, first of all, congratulations.

We will gladly take them, thank you. The 151 Miglia is a regatta where, historically, the A-Class, larger boats (Chestress 3 is a Class, B, ed.) that tend to reach interesting weather windows sooner and suffer less from bonanzas than the Maxis. This year we managed to turn the tide: we got off to a good start, got the important tactical choices right, and, after Montecristo, hooked a nice libeccio that accompanied us for three to four hours, making us “surf” until almost the arrival in Punta Ala.

A perfect regatta…

As the British say: with a good crew you win the ranking in your category. But it is the weather that makes you win the overall (“the crew wins the class, the weather helps winning the overall“)

Your Chestress 3 is a few years old now. When did you choose this boat?

I have always been an admirer of J’s. In 2003 I bought a J/109, in 2005 the opportunity arose to buy a J/133, the Chestress 2, with which we took a lot of satisfaction: the culminating year was 2010, with the victory of the Pirelli regattas and the Mediterranean Offshore Championship. Better than that, with that boat and a crew of friends, we could never have done. It was time for a change of boat, and I opted, in 2011, for the J/122: a boat that you can go both racing and cruising with, but which was already configured in a more “racing” way.

To wit.

The mast, boom and rudder are made of carbon, and we also have the mast jack (the hydraulic system that allows you to adjust the mast with the desired pre-tension and change the load without working on the rigging, ed.). The keel of my J/122 draws 10 cm more than the cruising version (2.387 m).

Have you made any modifications on the boat over the years?

Absolutely not, if the boat is valid no modification is necessary. This is the philosophy that has set me and the crew apart since the first Chestress… The real difference is all in the setting. Over the years you learn to know your boat better and better: we know, for example, that on the J/122 the mast goes very “agleted” (slightly angled toward the stern, ed.), that the boat is very sensitive to rigging adjustments and rigging tension. It is the details that make the difference….

Is there a gait or conditions in which Chestress 3 goes particularly hard?

The goodness of the design is confirmed precisely by its versatility. The boat does well in low, medium and high winds, it really is an all-rounder: when conditions get really tough, however, that’s where Chestress comes out on top. The boat does not have an exaggerated sail area and is medium displacement (about 90 square meters of canvas between mainsail and jib for 7,398 kilograms of weight) and is able to sail with full sails when other boats have to foil or reef…

Speaking of sails. How are you configured?

On the sails we have thought a lot about them and try to take care of them as much as possible, working closely with Dado Castelli (very experienced sailmaker now with Doyle, ed.). We have two mainsails (one for offshore and one for racing between the buoys, but we always end up using only the one for offshore), four jibs (jib 1,2,3,4), as many asymmetric (A1, A2, A3, A5): all the equipment is Doyle except for light and medium jib in 3DI from North Sails.

Do you not use Code Zero?

We don’t use it anymore, because at the rating level you pay a lot, but you use little. On the other hand, we have a sail that is often decisive for us, namely a jibtop. This is an uncommon jib in the Mediterranean, while it is used a lot in Northern Europe: it is a sail with a much higher clew than a traditional jib and a flat profile (some also call it “Yankee,” ed.) that is at its best on the transverse or upwind broadside in medium winds (12-18 knots), because it gives great thrust without heeling. We also use it when the wind “shoots” over 28 knots at the carriers, replacing the asymmetric.

In short, you have quite a sail game at your disposal….

The winning formula is to use each in the range for which it is designed. We are “obsessed” with sail changes: at the cost of changing sets every 10 minutes, or at four o’clock in the morning, the cloth must always be the right one for that specific moment. This I think is one of our secrets….

But Giancarlo, to change sails every 10 minutes you must need a superequipment!

The stability of our crew is the main formula of Chestress 3. There is a “hard core” of over-60s (for none of whom sailing is a job, even though they are excellent sailors) and a few young grafts (like my daughter Maria and Angelo Bonaiti) but what has ruled, for years, even on previous Chestresses, is friendship. We are fortunate to have many “technical” and “engineering” minds on the boat, we are close-knit: however, we have never trained, Since 2003 to date, we have only gone out on the boat for training once!

How do you manage shifts on board in long regattas like the 151 Miglia?

Our system involves two shifts of three people taking turns every three hours, consisting of the coxswain, mainsman, and tailer. The two shifts must be balanced, there must not be a strong shift and a weak shift-I reveal the team in detail. Round 1: Roberto Di Salle (helmsman/tactician: 420 world champion in 1987, will anyone remember!), Alberto Magnani (mainsail), Maria Ghislanzoni (tailer).

Round 2: Leonardo Petti (helm, now owner of J/109 Chestress, my first J), Angelo Bonaiti (mainsail), Filippo Giano (Tailer). In addition to the two shifts we have three people “on-off” on call, 24 hours a day: me (skipper, helmsman and involved in every decision on board, because I like to share the responsibility for every choice), Alessandro Zamboni (bowman and our boat captain), Franco Gardella (navigator, halyardist and – excellent – cook: for us he is responsible for everything around the ladder to get below deck). Marcello Pasini and Caterina Belgrano were not on board, but they often race with us between the buoys.

Cook, you said. You don’t just eat protein bars aboard Chestress 3!

Absolutely, we go boating for fun, and good food is essential: do you want to put bars with a good risotto, tasty stuffed tigelle? The galley is more important than the weight….

About weight savings and ratings?

Ours is a “soft” approach. On board Chestress you will not find sawn toothbrush handles to save weight. We also go wide in terms of equipment on board and respect equipment because there is never too much safety at sea. We always keep the autopilot on board (undeclared, so no rating advantage). Maybe we could save a quintal of weight, but that is not what makes the difference. When we rule well we win, when we rule poorly we fall behind….

One last curiosity: does Ghislanzoni also go cruising or does he only do regattas?

Are you kidding? The cruise is one of the most beautiful parts! Right now I am about to leave for Greece….

But how, with the Chestress 3 that is now in Punta Ala?

No… waiting for me in Preveza (in Epirus, ed.) is my old Chestress 2, the J/133: when I bought the 122 it was a great time to buy, but a very bad time to sell. So I decided to keep both boats, configuring the 133 from pure cruising! No Giraglia for me, now I have to relax a bit by setting sail in the direction of Kalamata!

Eugene Ruocco

The other overall winners of the 151 Miglia

In addition to Chestress 3’s ORC Overall victory, out of 113 boats that arrived, there is another noteworthy achievement in this 151 Mile: the first place, in IRC, of another boat with which you go cruising in total comfort but with which you take great satisfaction in racing.

We are talking about Alex Laing’s ICE 52 RS Goose in force at YC Parma. The boat went very fast, with a recorded top speed of 19.6 knots.

The IRC ranking reserved for boats longer than 60 feet, on the other hand, was won by Atalanta II, the Farr 72 updated by Carlo Puri Negri’s Felci(we had told you her story here).

• Discover all the rankings of the 151 Miglia 2024

The 151 Mile of Controversy

This edition-which had 242 boats at the start and which did not have the Giraglia rock as its usual buoy due to the reduction of the course because of weather conditions-had a trail of controversy. There were no-go areas around the islands (Pianosa and Montecristo) within which sailing was prohibited: but, from dockside rumors, there appear to have been several boats that did not respect the limits by approaching the islands and gaining precious miles. It is right and sacrosanct to sanction those who cut the path. But perhaps the problem is upstream: was there a need for the no-go zones, which, moreover, are difficult to detect in navigation, without mede of any kind? Let us know how you feel about it.