Field tested. How sailing helps grow a business.

Chat sailing is good for you, without drugs and therapists to improve mental/physical health, is a fact. And not only we at the Sailing Journal tell you this, but also authoritative research. It is less obvious to prove that “sailing practice” is the right recipe, a powerful tool for increasing a company’s performance by improving and enhancing the potential of a work team.

Team Sailing that helps companies grow

Curious, we decide to test in the field whether sailing is also an effective tool for growing a business.

Said and done, we are in Laveno, on Lake Maggiore at the headquarters of TopActive, a leading corporate training company that uses the practice of sailing to develop and enhance soft skills, so-called “softskills.”

Paola Ferrario, who welcomes us, is the manager of TopActive. In her resume, in addition to d be an experiential facilitator and behavioral coach-we inquired first so as not to make a bad impression-we find a brilliant career as a high-level sailor that includes the titles of world vice-champion and Italian Laser champion, as well as a medal for athletic valor. She is also the author of a bestselling training book entitled “Digital Experiential Training” and boasts among her training clients such companies as Lindt, La Marzocco, Ferrari Group, Nexive, Generali, CODAU, and many other medium and small companies.

Why sailing works for a business

We ask Paola to explain why sailing practice should help improve a company’s performance. “The sailboat is one of the closest metaphors to the company; it offers the opportunity to bring meaningful behavioral dynamics to life by allowing similarities and connections to work life to emerge. One is on board the same boat that represents the company with clear and defined roles; expressing one’s own and others’ needs and listening are essential to be able to progressively improve performance and achieve the goal. The tasks of the crew are connected to each other even in a simple and elementary maneuver.” .

“Sailing“, Paola continues, “requires planning and control skills, modulation of attention, ability to handle the unexpected and error, quick decision making and reading the opponent’s tactics. Sailing offers the group the opportunity to test psychophysical adaptability, the ability to communicate effectively, give and receive feedback, embedding a functional error culture, strengthening collaboration, stress tolerance, problem solving and leadership.

Motivation, enthusiasm, teamwork, and focus on results are the elements that make the difference between success and failure in both business and sport. The winning boat is one driven by a united group working cohesively toward a clear and shared goal, where roles are defined, where the leader knows how to bring out the best in everyone, motivating and supporting them with training.” .

To every company your “Team Sailing”

But then does one need to know how to sail to participate in your “Team Sailing Skills” trainings?“No nautical skills are necessary, because sailing becomes the tool, the means to be able to have a new and meaningful experience. Taking participants out of the comfort zone means accompanying them in learning new behaviors and awareness.”

Is TopActive’s “Team Sailing Skills” format standard or is it tailored to the needs of the company? “There is nothing standard. Having defined the business objectives, the TopActive team, designs customized one-day or multi-day interventions in which classroom and boat activities are integrated. Developing these skills in an interactive, hands-on way that fully engages the individual is the goal of the Team Sailing. Only in this way do we help managers, leaders, employees and work groups achieve their goals and foster performance improvement at all levels.”

Our practical experience

Now we just had to try it out, to check the reality. So we snuck into a TopActive Sailing Team as an assistant technician, in simple terms sailor of the boat where the three-day training is held, Friday through Sunday. And what a boat! We are one of two sailors on a Rodman 42, a famous boat in a small series of seven ordered by then King Juan Carlos of Spain.

The resume of this 12-meter boat includes two ORC world championship victories. The second surprise is that as technician and skipper is one of the world’s most famous sailors, Tiziano Nava, who has won several world championships and was tactician for Azzurra and aboard the Moro di Venezia in the oldest and most famous sailing regatta, the America’s Cup and was on board the Moro di Venezia.

If the boat, skipper and trainer/coach guarantee the “performance” side of corporate training, so does the choice of location to satisfy the enjoyable side that is part of the TopActive mix. We are on the island of Procida, with the Gulf of Naples as a backdrop, in late September. The context chosen by Paola Ferrario and her team is that of a leg of the VELA Cup circuit regattas/sea parties organized by the Giornale della Vela where the competitive spirit of the competition exists, but is not exasperated and is mixed with team spirit and a pinch of healthy relaxation and fun.

The company’s request was to improve the performance of a work group; there were eight participants.

Our judgment and that of the company

After spying for three days on this heterogeneous group where seven out of eight participants had never gone sailing, I can confirm that what we thought, namely that sailing is a good metaphor for corporate life, has been fully respected.

In an unexpectedly short time, three days, the group realized that in the boat as in the company, the individual’s mistake affects the group’s performance, and everyone’s actions can make a difference on performance.

A simple group turned into a high-potential team. The group realized that this was a useful experience, not a “company reward trip.” Awarenesses emerged and action plans were defined to be tested in the work context. And in the end, everyone had fun.

To check whether everything that seemed positive had turned into an improvement for the company, a month after the course we phoned the company manager, in this case the CEO, to get confirmation of our positive feelings.

The CEO’s analysis was this: “Every year our company allocates a budget for ‘motivational’ training, but we were perplexed about the actual results using traditional methods, such as targeting a motivator who explains, with theory alone, how the individual and the group can bring out the best in each other. It often turns into a kind of reward trip end a s é same. The TopActive experience applied to the practice of sailing aboard a boat, even in a competition with other boats, set in motion functional and formative mechanisms, peculiar only to sailing, that are also beneficial in the company. Colleagues ‘met and recognized’ each other in a natural and informal setting and also had fun.”

Team Sailing TopActive at the VELA Cup 2025

We just had to, to close the circle, hear back from Paola Ferrario as well. She, too, gave us positive feedback on the experience of her Team Sailing course at TopActive dedicated to companies, embedded in a leg of the Vela Cup with a performance boat like the Rodman 42.

So a partnership was formed for 2025 to offer companies this same model in the Vela Cup stages held from May to September, at locations in the Gulf of Tigullio in Liguria, in front of the islands in Tuscany, in the Maddalena archipelago and Costa Smeralda in Sardinia, and on the island of Procida in the Gulf of Naples.

Read more:

paola@topactive.org

www.topactive.org