Disappointed owner’s outburst: “That’s why I withdrew from the Italian Offshore Championship.”

The long trail of controversy left behind the Italian Absolute Offshore ORC Sailing Championship in Brindisi, the most important national competition for cabin racing sailboats, shows no sign of abating. The subject of controversy, which has displeased many sailors, as we have told you here, relates to the management of the rankings by the Race Committee (changed while the race was in progress) and also the compensation system chosen, the so-called PCS (Polar Curve Scoring) and the Built Course with the implied wind.

Then the choice of two boats not to race in protest in the last races was discussed: the X-35 Trottolina by Saverio Trotta and the Ecoracer OD 30 Northern Light by Samer & Co owned by Fabio Bignolini.

Bignolini himself, in this letter he sent us, explains the motivation for his gesture.

Why I withdrew from the Italian Offshore Championship.

Dear Editor,

following the article involving us in the controversy at the Italian Altura Championship in Brindisi, considering that a week after the event no clarification has been received from the organizers and comments continue to circulate on the web, I have decided to make our discontent public.

Our group has been bringing Northern Light to the Mediterranean offshore race courses for twelve years now. Our passion has led us to hold several Italian and European Championships. In recent years we have also become promoters of the Ecoracer project from being simple racers, with which we now take part in minialtura and offshore events.

Still today we are the youngest group at sea, withdrawing a boat and its crew from an important event was a very painful decision for me, and that is why after what happened in Brindisi I think it is necessary to explain our position and our thoughts, already made clear on Saturday to the FIV and UVAI President.

What happened in Brindisi? It is a little difficult to explain for those who were not there. Those who race in ORC know their opponents well, and already after the sea finishes you have a pretty good idea of how the races are going. This time the guys – I only arrived in Brindisi on Friday – were very satisfied with the work done at sea but found themselves with scores of 9 and 16 on their return to shore. The rankings didn’t add up; when I saw then that the X-35 Trottolina(the other boat withdrawn, ed.) after a day always in the lead had scored 12-13 it was clear to me that things were not working.

I immediately heard from the other owners and knew something strange was going on. Upon arrival in Brindisi, I also talked to the people in charge of the rankings but they didn’t want to give me much explanation; everything was okay with them.

I later found out that the implied wind was much lower than the 14 knots found on the water by the fleet. Even more serious are the ways in which the rankings were changed several times, even disappearing on Saturday morning before the last day of racing: in practice, crews went on the water to play for an Italian title without having any certainty about how to deal with the last two races.

We believe that an event as important as the Italian Offshore Championship should be managed with professionalism and transparency: an inaccurate management of the rankings with errors in data collection is not acceptable (even today in one of the rankings found online they confused the minus five minutes signal at the start with the Start of the race by incorrectly calculating the time of the race), moreover, we have encountered a behavior that is not very transparent and respectful towards the competitors by the Committees.

In many years we have never witnessed the management of the rankings so far removed from reality, and we would have expected a different attitude toward the many registered professionals who expressed their disappointment from the very first day of racing.

These attitudes I don’t think are good for our sport because there is a lack of basic respect for the efforts that shipowners make precisely so that events like this can take place.

In our case, but it will be the situation of many, we invested tens of thousands of euros in boat preparation and crew training focusing all our efforts on participating and making a good impression in Brindisi.

It is not about winning at any cost-our Ecoracer with its square top is not a boat that can compare with the various 9.98s or X-35s-it is about participating with the assurance that the event will be run smoothly, because sailing at any level and in any context means we all share in the values and principles of the sport in general.

We hope that soon those who are most involved and responsible in carrying out this mission for the sailing world will come to their senses and return to expressing the values of fairness and respect.

Fabio Bignolini
Northern Light ITA 18003