Let us discover Club Nautico Versilia, which
together with the Associazione Vele Storiche Viareggio is organising the 15th
edition of the gathering-regatta Vele Storiche Viareggio, to take place from
the 17th – 20th October 2019. The collaboration between VSV - whose boats
are moored within the fellowship and whose President is Gianni Fernandes - and
the CNV which was founded in 1957 and is today chaired by Roberto Brunetti with
Admiral Marco Brusco as his Vice-President, is renewed and consolidated year
after year. Many of the most beautiful classic yachts in the Mediterranean and
further afield are moored on the quays of CNV.
CLUB
NAUTICO VERSILIA – A STORY LASTING MORE THAN 60 YEARS
The
club is in a strategic position in the heart of the town of Viareggio in Italy,
the pearl of Versilia which has become over the years a renowned nautical
centre used by the most beautiful megayachts and megasailers in the world. Its
headquarters, founded in 1957 by
Harry Bracci Torsi, look directly over an expanse of water containing around 70 boat moorings spread over three jetties.
A synergic and unbroken collaboration with the Italian Navy, in particular with the Port Authorities which, in an
adjacent area, have their operational headquarters and the moorings of the Coast Guard’s patrol boats. Club
Nautico Versilia, one of the most important associations concerned with the
promotion and spread of pleasure boating, today has more than 150 members. In 1962, at CNV, the unforgettable offshore
competition Viareggio-Bastia-Viareggio was born, and here too, in 2005 the
venture of the regatta of classic boats
organised by the Associazione Vele Storiche Viareggio began, which in 2019 is
in its 15th edition: it has become the most important and popular end-of-season sailboat gathering
reserved for the Ladies of the Sea. From
the 17th to the 20th October a fleet of more than 50 historic sailing boats,
the oldest built at the beginning of the 20th century, will live again the
golden age of yachting when aristocrats or wealthy business men commissioned
boats to be built using precious woods, and then competed against each other
with rules based on fair-play and gentlemen’s racing. CNV will as always offer their prestigious clubhouse, bar and
restaurant, as well as the other structures necessary to receive crews and
vehicles for assistance on the quay, and their contribution is vital for the
perfect success of this important occasion.
THE
TRADITION OF HISTORIC SAILING BOATS
Club
Nautico Versilia has always had a close relationship with historic sailing
boats, ever since the above-mentioned Viareggio-Bastia-Viareggio race which
later became an offshore competition of worldwide fame. In 2006, in the space
beside the Club, a celebration of the most famous motorboats from all over the
world, called VBV Legend, was organised.
In the sixties the Trofeo
Internazionale Emilio Benetti, limited to the Star Class, was born, in which great champions of this centenarian
sailing dinghy took part, and in the same period the Vela d’Oro, a high sea regatta which involved the towns of
Viareggio, Bastia and Livorno, also began; in the past famous people like Cino Ricci and Giorgio Falck have taken part.
These quays have seen historic sailing boats like the two-masted Royono of 1936, on which President J. F. Kennedy sailed with Marilyn Monroe, and all the most
important boats of the Naval Academy, from Stella
Polare to Artica II, from Capricia to Corsaro II, from Caroly
to Chaplin. The story of the
magnificent Bermudian Cutter, Zephyr,
launched in England in 1929 by the boatyard Philip & Son of Dartmouth and
designed by J. M. Soper & Son, is interesting. This boat, 20 metres long,
was already registered at Club Nautico Versilia in 1966 and today, 90 years
after her launch, her new owners continue to be members. Ardi
too (ex Kerkyra II) is a source of
pride. This boat, an 11-metre Bermudian
sloop launched in 1968 by the German boatyard Abeking & Rasmussen and
designed by the New York office Sparkman
& Stephens, was commissioned by Marina Spaccarelli Bulgari, the
well-known business woman from the luxury jewellery sector. Admiral Agostino Straulino, a hero of Italian
sailing, competed in regattas on Ardi. In 2012 it was donated to Club Nautico
Versilia by Countess Carol Minutoli Tegrimi according to the will of her
husband Count Alessandro Minutoli Tegrimi who was for many years a prominent
figure in CNV. Ardi has become the sail bearer of the club; she took part last
season – under the guidance of the Board Member Fabio Conti - in the Panerai
Classic Yachts Challenge sailing regattas in the category “Classic Yachts”
where she did extremely well, thus increasing the image and prestige of CNV,
and this year – under the member Luca
Poli – she has just won the CSSN-ADSP Mariperman Trophy in the sea around
La Spezia.
THE
SPREAD OF MARITIME CULTURE
Over
the course of the various editions of the Classic Yacht regattas the rooms in
Club Nautico Versilia have hosted numerous initiatives, always open to
everybody, linked to the promotion of maritime culture. Here there have been
exhibitions of boat models (the exhibition will take place again this year),
photographers (Marco Trainotti, Giovanni Nardini), paintings (Emanuela Tenti, Sandro Feruglio, Silvia
Serafini) and maritime art (Giovanni
Caputo, Andrea Maggiori). In 2017
an important competition of elegance for motorcars was held, with jurors such
as Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of Pitti Immagine. Books written by well-known
people from the nautical world (Piero
Maria Gibellini, Davide Besana)
have been presented as well as projects of new sailing adventures (the
circumnavigation of the world by the sailor Patrick
Phelipon). The management of the
Club has always given great support, starting with the “master of the house” Muzio Scacciati who, every October, as
well as giving operational technical support,
takes care of the drinks parties and open-bar for all the 400 and more crew present in Viareggio.
THE LEGS
OF THE “ARTIGLIO TROPHY”
Club
Nautico Versilia can boast of organising two of the five legs that comprise the
Artiglio Trophy, the regattas of
historic sailing boats which take place every year between May and October in
the high Tyrrhenian Sea. They are the Challenge Trophy “Ammiraglio G.
Francese”, set up in 1996 in memory of Admiral
Giuseppe Francese who was an important contributor to the birth of the
Coastguards, and the fifth and last leg, which is in fact the Vele Storiche
Viareggio gathering. After the last day
of the regattas the season’s winners are announced and awarded their prize in
the Clubhouse and a new invitation for the forthcoming season is made.
LINK TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE XV GATHERING OF THE VELE STORICHE VIAREGGIO
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