Farewell to Giorgio Carriero, the “lord” of Italian offshore sailing

The sailing world mourns the passing of Giorgio Carriero, one of the most emblematic figures of Italian offshore sailing, who passed away peacefully on May 17, 2025 at the age of 92. Owner of the legendary Mandrake, boats with which Italy participated in the Admiral’s Cup in ’75, ’77, ’81, ’85, until 1991 where he took second place, narrowly missing out on victory. Member of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda since 1978 and among the major promoters of the Cortina Golf Club. An oil businessman, noted art collector and innovative sailor, on his boats he was among the first Italians to have North Sails sails and Harken winches on board.

The Mandrake saga: from the Admiral’s Cup to the Sardinia Cup

His first participation in the Admiral’s Cup was in 1973 aboard Sagittarius, a boat designed in 1971 by a very young German Frers. This debut marked the beginning of a long and glorious adventure in the world of offshore sailing, marked by a series of hulls that all bore the same name: Mandrake. These boats soon became undisputed stars of international sporting seasons.

Giorgio Carriero’s Mandrakes were an integral part of the Italian team at the Admiral’s Cup in several editions: 1975, 1977, 1981 and 1985. The high point of this long series of participation was reached in 1991, when the Mandrake crew came close to victory, taking an honorable second place.

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In 1990 and 1992, Giorgio Carriero achieved two prestigious victories in the waters of Porto Cervo, winning the Sardinia Cup with his 50-foot Mandrake. During those years, some of the biggest names in world sailing took turns aboard his boats, including Rod Davis, Torben Grael, Flavio Favini, John Marshall and Francesco De Angelis, as well as his friend and esteemed sailor Giorgio Zolezzi, who had been part of Azzurra’s crew.

Giorgio Carriero: innovator and a sailing visionary

To fully understand the figure of Giorgio Carriero, we gathered the words of Emanuele Cecchini, Harken’s sales director, and Giorgio Zolezzi, Carriero’s longtime sailor and friend, who had the privilege of sailing alongside him for decades.

“I embarked on Mandrake when I was 20 years old, now I’m 61, so some time has passed,” Cecchini says. “We’ve done the Admiral’s Cups, the 50-foot Worlds, the Sardinia Cups … we built the last boat, the 64-footer, which I followed right along.”

Cecchini describes Carriero as “a very precise person and he loved to get things done right, he was an innovator and he was a person who deeply loved everything he did, indiscriminately whether it was work, whether it was a hobby. He was a man who always had a plan.” An example of his inexhaustible energy? “When he stopped boating for a while, he devoted himself to building the golf club in Cortina and succeeded. Then, when that project was finished, he went back to the boat.”

“He was a volcano of ideas and a profound innovator, seeing things no one else could see. He was among the first to bring North Sails sails and Harken winches to Italy,” Cecchini points out. “We were almost the first in the world to have 3DL (Editor’s note: three-dimensional printed to create a single piece, no seams) sails at the ’93 Admiral. “

Among the promoters of professionalism in sailing

On board, Carriero was a figurehead, surrounded by a “historic core” of trusted people, including Cecchini himself and Giorgio Zolezzi. Zolezzi, who sailed with Carriero for a full 55 years, remembers his extraordinary foresight: “In 1972, with his first boat, the Sagittarius, a second-class Sparkman&Stephens, he started a new way of managing crews of offshore racing boats.” At that time, crews consisted mainly of amateurs. Carriero, on the other hand, “obtained the cooperation of Andy McGowan, a skilled professional in the American sailing-sporting world, whose experience promoted the evolution of racing techniques in Italy as well.”

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His style was equally revolutionary. “Until the early 1970s, during the regatta period, ‘amateurs’ were housed in hotels while sailors on owner-operated boats lived perpetually on board,” Zolezzi explains. “Giorgio Carriero extended the same favorable treatment to them, making them de factosailing professionals.”

The boats of Giorgio Carriero

Passionate from a young age about sailboats and their design, Giorgio Carriero “he always followed firsthand all the construction phases of his 11 boats (from the first, the Sagittarius, to the last, the day-sailer Mandrake), commissioning from time to time the best designer of the day(Ron Holland, Doug Peterson, Philippe Briand, Bruce Farr, German Frers) and the best yard specializing in racing boats.”

In 1991, his influence also extended to the creation of the one-design club Smeralda 888. Carriero “convinced some YCCS members to have the club monotype Smeralda 888, designed by German’s son Mani Frers, built on Lake Garda and rigged by Giorgio Zolezzi. The first 11 Smeralda 888s raced in Porto Cervo, helmed by their member-owners.”

“When we did the 64-footer, Giorgio wanted his historical group-there was Zolezzi, there was me,” Cecchini recalls. His quest for perfection led him to surround himself with talent: “He surrounded himself, he loved to surround himself, with people of culture who could help him achieve his goals.” Prominent among them was Gae Aulenti, the celebrated architect and designer, who was his “muse of inspiration” and curated the interiors of several Mandrakes, including the latest 64-footer.

Carriero was a born competitor. “He was a mathematician. Qhen there were ratings, he would look at the boats, he would calculate the time and you would cross the finish line he could already tell you whether you were first, second or third. He was always very … fierce, he was competitive, he definitely loved to win and he didn’t like to lose “. And his bond with his boats was deep: “He did not like it if his crew had harsh words toward the boat, because he considered the boat a part of himself.”