1975. The Giraglia, if you wanted to be a real sailor you couldn’t not be there

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.

Giraglia: won by Tarantella a lightning race

Taken from the 1975 Journal of Sailing, Year 1, No. 2, August, pp. 4-7.

Aggressive family crews, boats of all types and sizes, 243 miles between Italy and France. In those years the myth of the Giraglia regatta was born. Which still endures.

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Michele Molino, nautical engineer with the sea in his vein

When the first yachts arrived in Toulon on the night between Friday and Saturday, July 11, after a day and a half of racing, virtually no one was waiting for them. The Giraglia has become accustomed to long waits for boats with crews wracked by the heat of the becalmed after at least three days at sea. This year, however, a strong wind accompanied the entire race with peaks even so violent as to break masts and put the less tightly knit crews in trouble. A true offshore regatta, then, with the Giraglia rounded on the first night after an exciting gallop under spi and then a long upwind to the French coast, the islands and Toulon. Technically a linear race, with no tricks: the best boats and crews most attentive to sail changes and course prevailed. The Tarantella, a no-longer-young, but still beautiful yacht with its precious wood color, had a run of extreme regularity: it came into Giraglia behind the Phantom and the Benbow (the two very large ones), the Chaplin and the Enteara; in turning the islet he passed the Nita, then theEnteara, then missed the Chaplin and spun off to Toulon while the Panthom broke the mast.

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1985. The sails of the future are being born. The GdV is in, with Lowell North

Running as fast as possible

His new very heavy sail game served him very well in that weather. In the always leading “seconds,” however, the Moby Dick since the start. A very regular race, in vain undermined by the always excellent Dida III, by the Recruiter, by the Caligu VII and the Koala. In the “thirds,” surprise at the defeat of Gambare, although the success of Max Boris with the Sumbra was not at the start to be ruled out. However, again the best among the firsts. As in the “fourth,” “fifth,” and “sixth,” so say the rankings. And as indeed it could only be, with such a simple regatta, where no particular tactic could be chosen, but it was necessary to run as fast as possible on the predetermined course. The only variation could be had at the French islands, where there was the usual choice of whether to pass for out or to parade in the channel. We can say that no one won or lost because they were outside or inside the islands. No one can give credit or blame to either route.

Polar Star’s record endures

For a beautiful Giraglia, there is therefore little to say about tactics. It rarely happens that the rankings totally explain it as happened this year. The wind – class by class – was the same for everyone. From the point of view of attendance it can be noted that the boats were from last year and that of new boats there were, besides everything, very few. And no “monsters.” The only one, perhaps, the Phantom, broke the mast and remained a curiosity. Had this bad accident not happened to him, it is safe to say that he would have broken the course record, which instead still belongs to the North Star Navy, but on the reverse course. On the organization, two words, we would say modest in ToIone with the usual thousand delays, rigorous in Sanremo that of the YCI, with Lagorio Serra and Savio the lead. Two notes to close. First: the only useless thing about the regatta was the coast-to-coast, coast-to-coast “sixths,” without widening on the Giraglia. Few boats and little enthusiasm. What is the point, then, of such a regatta? Secondly, daily newspapers have again this year unloved the most prestigious regatta in the Mediterranean, getting everything wrong, names and rankings. Why, then, are they not silent?

by Mario Oriani

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