1991. Gorla’s bubbles that become art

Welcome to the special section “GdV 5th Years.” We are introducing you, day by day, An article from the archives of the Journal of Sailing, starting in 1975. A word of advice, get in the habit of starting your day with the most exciting sailing stories-it will be like being on a boat even if you are ashore.

Dodo Gorla, the artist

Taken from the 1991 Journal of Sailing, Year 17, no. 06, July, pp. 44-51.

Face to face with Giorgio “Dodo” Gorla, the Italian who, copied with the unforgettable Alfio Peraboni, won as only Straulino in the Star class. You will understand how to measure intelligence in interpreting the wind and how to elevate upwind to an art form.

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If you think sailing is a boat sport Giorgio Gorla is not for you. If, however, like us, you believe it is a sport for men who measure their intelligence in interpreting the wind, Gorla is your ideal champion. In the Star, the most technical of the Olympic classes, he has won it all. For more than a decade he has relentlessly tacked on the right side elevating the windward mark to art. His secret? There isn’t. Gorla is a serene man who loves sailing deeply, and he also manages to make people love it. That is why he is worth listening to carefully.

Giorgio “Dodo” Gorla was born in Orta San Giulio in the province of Novara 46 years ago. For the past 10 years he has lived in Venice, where he owns a pharmacy. He is married to Caterina and has a 19-year-old son, Nicola, who curiously hates sailing. Gorla ‘s sailing career began very early in Snipe with victory in the Italian junior championship (1963) and then overall (’66). This was followed by a stint in Finn with another Italian title before the final marriage with Star paired with former basketball player Alfio Peraboni. In Star Gorla and Peraboni won four Italian titles, the European in 1985, the spring European in 1987, the world championship in 1984, as well as two bronze medals at the Olympics in Moscow (1980) and Los Angeles (1984). Gorla currently still races in Star with 30-year-old Gardesan Dino Bonetti.

Thursday, March 5, 1984. The fifth and penultimate race of the Star class world championship is scheduled at Villamoura in southern Portugal. Leading the provisional standings is an Italian crew: Giorgio Gorla and Alfio Peraboni aboard an Italian boat from Danilo Folli ‘s yard in Mandello del Lario (where Peraboni was also born) marked with sail number 6573. The Italian pair’s scoreboard so far reads 7-4-11-4, for a total, without discard, of 46 points, or 3.7 less than the American Andrew Menkart, an up-and-coming former finnist who is on the rise in the rankings (3-18-14-1 his placings). It is the year of the Los Angeles Olympics and the quality level of the Star class world championship is as usual the highest possible. No Italian has been this high in the rankings in a Star world championship since Straulino (who, moreover, won three) and with only two races to go. Gorla on that morning of March 5 seven years ago confided to Peraboni a tremendous truism: “it takes a first place, other than placings.” But the wind is acting up, a breeze is expected that does not decide to arrive, the tension rises, Menkart is nervous, Gorla also, the very young, then Paul Cayard, seeks the first exploit of his career that will later take him all the way to the helm of the Moor of Venice. The start of the fifth race of the Star Worlds is finally given at ten to five in the afternoon with 15 knots 260-degree winds, that is, from the ocean. This is the situation Gorla prefers, Peraboni’s 115 kilograms curling on the water and allowing a very powerful mainsail. At the first windward mark, a windward mark without angles, played all on the center of the race course, Gorla has 54 seconds on his most direct opponent. An eternity. More, an overwhelming display of psychological and tactical superiority, earning him the day’s victory(Menkart on brain tilt finishes just 17) and the title of world champion the next day. Italy thus found Straulino‘s heir. To talk about 46-year-old Giorgio Gorla, we wanted to start with the most beautiful and crucial moment of his great career. Because often, recounting the exploits of a sailor, one summarily recounts the victories, dismisses the Olympic adventures forgetting that every career is made up of so many small episodes, one of which is fundamental. The first windward leg of that March 5, 1984 regatta in Portugal Giorgio Gorla will never forget, and we with him, because rarely do you get to see a win when it counts, even more rarely do you win with such a gap in front of a group of 79 opponents with the boat more or less identical to yours. And to remember him we are willing to gloss over the two Olympic medals, the European titles that Gorla, always in Peraboni‘s company, won. Today Gorla continues to race his Star and still has a lot of fun. He has changed bowman and is chasing the dream of his fourth Olympics. He is a happy man, has been married for many years to the blond and beautiful Caterina, has a 19-year-old son, Nicola, who skis quite well and is, though demurely struggling to admit it, extraordinarily proud of him. Gorla lives in Venice, Caterina‘s hometown, where he owns a pharmacy a stone’s throw from St. Mark’s Square. Before leaving him to speak, seated in an armchair at his club, the Compagnia della Vela, of course of Venice, two things need to be remembered. The first is that Gorla is the best tactician ever expressed in Italian sailing. “Tactician” in the broadest sense of the term, as one who is in tune with Aeolus and therefore feels and foresees even the slightest changes in wind direction and intensity, while everyone else receives information from Aeolus like a radio transmission under an overpass, garbled and indecipherable. The second is that Gorla might not have become what he is without his father Deda (from whom he borrowed his name in Dodo), a champion bobsledder and passionate sports executive. A man who wanted a champion son (in a parental discussion many years ago, there was talk about whether or not to buy his 14-year-old sons mopeds, and Deda ruled that the only moped he would buy his son Giorgio would be the one for the boat) and he got it. It’s just too bad, he died in 1981, that he didn’t get to fully enjoy its triumphs.

SAILING: Dodo, when you race on Lake Bracciano, the first feeling you get is that it is tiny. Yet Lake Orta, where you were born, is more than tiny. It is in fact one-third the size of Lake Bracciano. The fact that the best Italian sailor since Straulino, that is you, comes out of, let it be said without offense, such a “puddle,” is a fact that still leaves sailors in Genoa, Naples, Palermo and Trieste green with rage.
Gorla: But no, look that many excellent Italian sailors were born on the lakes. I really liked sports and living in Orta it was natural to ski in the winter and go sailing in the summer.

Sailing: But the small Lake Orta…
Gorla: Oh, look, it’s big enough I assure you. Of course, Torbole is something else, but basically I can’t complain.

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Sailing: Early sailing was called Snipe.
Gorla: Yes, it was the most popular class in my neck of the woods, a very good school.

Sail: Dodo, you seem elusive to me.
Gorla: No, the point is that sailing at that time was mostly a game. A beautiful and fascinating game, but still a game, like there are so many in everyone’s adolescence. I wasn’t a champion, I didn’t think I was going to become one, I mostly wanted to have fun, to go over it like that, that piece of my life, it seems a bit reductive.

Sailing: After the Snipe came the time for the Finn…
Gorla: What a lot of effort, and what frustrations! The physique certainly did not help me running on such a tough boat as the Finn. I was too light, I was giving my soul but there was nothing to be done, many opponents seemed invincible. Later many of them I found again in Star and realized that they were not so invincible after all.

Sailing: Would you change your Star World Cup to a Gold Cup, the Finn World Cup?
Gorla: No, and why? If you scroll through their respective honor roll you will see that the “greatest” ones won in the Stars.

Sailing: However, your first Olympic attempt was in 1968, dry selections at La Maddalena. Do you want to remember the order of finish?
Gorla: Sure, first Pelaschier, second Albarelli, third Golser, fourth me.

Sailing: What do you think about Pelaschier? He says of you verbatim that you sail as naturally as you walk.
Gorla: He was very kind.

Sail: Now it’s not like you’re complimenting each other.
Gorla: But I seriously think Mauro Pelaschier is the best Italian sailor since Straulino.

Sail: But look at the numbers that say that’s you.
Gorla: Now you’re the one paying compliments, you don’t think I’m telling you these things….

Sailing: I give up, back to Pelaschier.
Gorla: I met him again recently at the fifth lor championships in Lignano. He is still very strong. Great bowlines, always on the right side and a lot of focus. Just really good.

Sailing: Gorla on the Ior. You resisted for a long time, finally, though not completely, you gave in. Why? And why not earlier?
Gorla: I had mentioned it before, I will explain it better now. I sail for pure pleasure, and for a long time I thought there could be nothing better in the sport than a technical and exciting Olympic class like the Star. Ior means lots of people around, not necessarily all friends, with whom to share the same joy of racing. Too complicated. Plus there were never the right prerequisites, in the sense that I never found a boat of real friends to have fun with. It didn’t happen, however I don’t regret it. That’s just the way it was.

SAILING: Today, however, you are occasionally seen in smaller boats, from fifths to sevens.
Gorla: In fact, if the job allows me, if friends ask me, and since the commitment in Star is not as hard as it used to be, I let myself be tempted, and I also have fun.

Sailing: Your best results in Finn?
Gorla: Italian champion in 1974, 24th in the world championship.

Sailing: When did the time come for the Star?
Gorla: In 1977 I was in Musso and by chance I participated in a regatta with my brother-in-law. I won three out of three races immediately realizing that I had found my ideal boat. I felt her like my Finn, the tactics were similar. It was love at first sight.

Sailing: Dreaming of the Olympics.
Gorla: No, I dreamed of those as a child, but by ’77 I had stopped thinking about them, I was 32 years old, plus when I started the Star it was not Olympic class.

Sailing: When is the leap forward in the international arena?
Gorla: Since 1978 when I started boating with Alfio Peraboni, I went almost every day on the boat for two years.

Sailing: So much for those who blame you for being an untrained person.
Gorla: Oh this is a legend. He thinks that once even Straulino chided me friendly, he said, “ah Gorla, if he would train more!”

Sail: I mean what is the truth?
Gorla: The truth is that I was lucky enough to be able to afford it because in the last ten years there were no substantial technical revolutions. It was enough to keep up with the times with materials, and we were lucky enough to have the best shipyards in the world at home. As for sails, there are professional sailmakers working for us, to order a game from the best of the moment you don’t need to be trained, at most informed.

Sailing: As in, upwind is always upwind, and if the body can handle it, there is no need to spend a lifetime in a boat.
Gorla: No, don’t misunderstand. I don’t want to be an example for anybody, you need to go on a boat all the time, as much as possible, other than stories. The point is that I happened to go a lot before, less when others expected me to go more. But I explain it by the fact that the “others” were not expected to know the details of my career.

Sailing: Isn’t it also that the Star forgives more mistakes?
Gorla: Yes, I know what you are referring to. When I won the spring European championship in Torbole in 1987 during a gybe at Ponale I literally capsized, but I lost relatively little. Had I been on an FD or a 470 the race would undoubtedly have been compromised.

Sailing: Let’s go back. To 1980, the year of the first Olympics, the Tallinn Olympics, bronze medal. First medal after a fast since 1968 when the same metal fell to Albarelli in the Finn and Cavallo in the Star.
Gorla: Mankin, now coach of the Italian Olympic teams and therefore also my coach, won the gold. He was very well prepared and it was his home Olympics, so for the gold there was nothing to be done.

Sailing: What about silver?
Gorla: It went to the Austrian Hubert Raudaschl. I turned first at the last windward mark with silver in my pocket. Then there was a wind shift in his favor, I came sixth and bronze it was.

Vela: Look I don’t move on to anything else until you tell what happened on the podium.
Gorla: Well yes, I cried.

Sailing: I’d say it’s time to ask you about your “historical” bowman, that Alfio Peraboni according to many the secret of your victories.
Gorla: What should I tell you. We grew up together, when I first took him in the boat he was little more than a child. With grit, determination and physical power he became the best bowman in the Star world and remained so from at least 1983 until and including ’85.

Sail: How much do you owe him?
Gorla: At least as much as he owes me, in Star you go in two, the crew is inseparable. Besides the fact that of course, first of all, Alfio is an important friend.

Sailing: A notable opponent first in Finn then in Star in your career, is a peer of yours, Albino Fravezzi. With him you remember epic confrontations, but in the decisive moment you always ended up prevailing.
Gorla: I remember a Finn regatta on Lake Garda many years ago. A storm came and overturned us in the middle of the lake. We clung to our boats me, Albino and Lievi, a real storm. I sometimes joke that if I had been lost in that storm Fravezzi’s career would have been different.

Sailing: Have you ever been afraid in a boat?
Gorla: I remember a fall in the water in Orta when I was a child always with a storm in the way. Since then I never forget to put on a life jacket.

Sailing: An ‘excellent habit.
Gorla: Yeah and you don’t know how happy I was this year in Norway at the Mini Ton Cup to have the life jacket.

Sailing: Tell.
Gorla: Yes, I was actually scared. I was participating in the Mini Ton Cup. For the average regatta they let us start with 35 knots. In the farthest bay the wave was breaking right next to the buoy to turn. I get there safely but when I am there a crazy wave drags me into the water. I remember thinking that for me it ended Il. Then I don’t know how (actually, I do know how: they were great) aboard in two manage to pull down the sails and retrieve me. And now I’m here telling you about it.

Sailing: Back to Fravezzi.
Gorla: A great opponent, sometimes I think everything always went right for me, everything went wrong for him. But what can I do about it?

Sailing: Let’s retrace the thread of your career. We’re back to the golden year, 1984.
Gorla: World Championship victory and Olympic bronze.

Sailing: Let’s start with the world championship.
Gorla: A huge satisfaction. I remember that at the last race only Paul Cayard could beat me. The wind was unstable and he recovered in one mark a beauty of 30 positions. At that moment, it was the last windward mark, I confessed to Alfio, “Look you, I can’t take it anymore.”

Sailing: Winning the world championship presented you at the Los Angeles Olympics a few months later as the man to beat. It was bronze again, though.
Gorla: I would like to erase from my life the last 24 hours of that Olympics. From the night before the last event when I decided to change mast and sails.

Sailing: However, halfway through the race you show up at the stern buoy virtually gold medalist in second place. Too bad Alfio grazes the buoy with his life jacket. You continue…
Gorla: I didn’t lose a lot of time materially turning the buoy, just one position. But I got very nervous. Today I have the doubt that I could have perhaps avoided turning back, the buoy was barely touched and nobody was close…. However given Buchan’s prodigious comeback from sixth to first, gold it would not have been anyway.

Sailing: But the silver ended up going to Germany’s Griese.
Gorla: I said it, I lost my temper. And so I missed the last two upwinds.

Sailing: So on the podium…
Gorla: I was not happy at all.

Sailing: Let’s play a crazy game. Let’s build an unbeatable Star class helmsman who has the best characteristics of your opponents. Let’s start with the slack. Who is the best you’ve met?
Gorla: Easy answer, the Brazilian Grael, a true phenomenon. Besides him German Alex Hagen, at least as long as he could count on Hoesch as bowman. Aft again Grael, plus Sweden’s Johansson. Upwind American Bill Buchan and still Alex Hagen. Best start Dennis Conner.

Sailing: Most skillful in the protest phase.
Gorla: American Mark Reynolds, silver in Seoul. It is a mystery how he always succeeds in the impossible: getting a PMS taken away. But going back to my Italian opponents, I’d like to go downwind like Fravezzi and have his muscle power.

Vela: So tell me about Flavio Scala.
Gorla: His was a different way of boating, no offense to anyone, a bit “old.” If Flavio was in front he won the race, but if he was behind he couldn’t catch up.

Sail: Are you envious?
Gorla: No, frankly not. I always ran against myself, I was the one to beat. And I always sincerely admired who was winning, who was better than me.

Sailing: America’s Cup.
Gorla: But I am completely out of it.

Sailing: Don’t hide behind a finger. Gardini’s Moro di Venezia races in the colors of your own club, the Compagnia della Vela. And I know, because he told me, that Paul Cayard thinks very highly of you. Why aren’t you on the Moro di Venezia?
Gorla: Pretty much for the same reason I said no to Azzurra.

Sailing: On Azzurra lasted only a few hours, a blitz in Porto Cervo and immediately the return home. What’s really wrong between Gorla and the America’s Cup?
Gorla: I am not a kid. I have a job, which is then the pharmacy to follow. A family that consists of a wife a son that I like to follow in his ski races. And I live in a wonderful city, probably without equal in the world.

Sailing: All very right, but…
Gorla: Participating in the America’s Cup means revolutionizing one’s life: months and months of travel, grueling training, subjecting the whole family to sacrifices that are basically, in my view, unjustified. Of course if I could get to the boat by helicopter when there were ten minutes to go, I probably would. But under these conditions they won’t let me do it…. (laughs, ed.)

SAILING: And to think that, again I quote Cayard, you would be a perfect America’s Cup man, a tactician with flair.
Gorla: Cayard is very kind. One day when he was still here in Venice training with Moro he rang the door. He was sad and wanted to hear about Star, about the week in Kiel that had just ended. Maybe he was feeling some nostalgia, I don’t know. He has a lot of energy, but the America’s Cup is really a big commitment.

Vela: But ultimately what does it mean to be a good tactician?
Gorla: I should be the one to ask you since you talk about it so often. There are days you go out on a boat and everything works perfectly, you tack in the right place, you’re fast. Maybe it depends on biorhythms.

Sailing: Do you ask your bowman for advice on tacking?
Gorla: No, I am used to making my own decisions.

Sailing: What is the best feeling you have in Star?
Gorla: Aft in the strong wind, it’s wonderful to feel that you dominate the boat running very fast through the waves.

Sailing: What about a particular regatta?
Gorla: A training regatta before the 1980 Olympics with 12 meters per second, all board to board with Mankin.

Sailing: What do you think about kids starting their sailing careers today?
Gorla: I like them. Although some people started a little early to put on airs as professionals. I notice it because I consider myself the last of the amateurs.

Sailing: Everyone?
Gorla: Yes. I always remember a dinner at a Laser championship several years ago. There was a 14-year-old guy at the table who was arrogantly firing off judgments on everyone. You could tell he had the drive to become a champion, and in fact he became one, it was Paolo Semeraro.

Sailing: II next event is the Olympics in Barcelona next year. Now you race with Dino Bonetti, mighty strong. What are your hopes of participating in your fourth Olympics?
Gorla: With the dry selections it will be decided on the tenth of a point, there are several of us who can compete and all it takes is one PMS to find ourselves out of the game.

Vela: About your fellow starters you just don’t want to talk to me?
Gorla: I think Benamati is among the top five star players in the world, but that doesn’t mean that I, Semeraro, Fravezzi, D’Ali or Ferrarese can’t beat him in a dry selection.

Sailing: American Bill Buchan won gold in the Star at Los Angels at age 50. How old will you be by Barcelona?
Gorla: 47.

By Luca Bontempelli

NDR – Since 1992, having left the Star , Gorla began racing on Lake Garda, and won at the helm of the 1993 Asso 99 Italian Championship, on the boat of Luciano Lievi, his former partner in the Finn team. In 1994 he again won the Italian Star Championship in Malcesine, with his first bowman Alessandro La Lomia of Palermo. Also on Garda he won the Italian Dolphin Championship (1977) UFO (2000) and again the Ace 99 Championship (2002) at the helm of the Giovannini brothers’ boat. In 2013, at the age of 69 , he won the Italian Dinghy Championship in Santa Margherita ligure with 119 competitors, reaching the 14th Italian title, in 8 different classes.

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