That day when Cotonella ruled the Oceans.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Sailing, the great excellences of the sailing world tell their stories and reveal their projects. In this column, discover all the companies and people who have made important contributions to the multifaceted world of sailing, which enables us all to go to sea in all forms and contexts.

In this episode, we take you on a journey to discover the feat of Cotonella and Ciccio Manzoli, when Italian sailing made it big in the Ocean.

A special day

8:41 a.m., June 16, 2005. Twenty years ago, for the first time ever, Italy won the Ostar (short for Original Singlehanded TransAtlantic Race), the epic solo ocean crossing from Plymouth to Newport, 3,000 miles in the North Atlantic between the Old and New Worlds.

Franco Manzoli a.k.a. Ciccio, aboard his self-built trimaran Cotonella (12.18 m hull length by 11.80 m beam), crossed the finish line in Newport after 17 days, 21 hours and 44 minutes, making history. In the August 2005 issue of the Journal of Sailing, we celebrated his epic feat.

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It’s not every day that one designs and builds with one’s own hands (structural calculations by Franck de Rivoyre, with the invaluable help of a drawing program lent to him by Vittorio Malingri and the collaboration of sailmaker Francesco Mura) the boat that wins the toughest transatlantic of all. “In addition to a good tactical choice,” namely keeping further north of the opponents in the final phase of the race, Ciccio told the GdV, “the victory depended a lot on the reliability of the boat. Coming to this regatta with a trimaran that I could have full confidence in was one of my goals when I launched it in 2003. In two years of racing in the Mediterranean I tested it in every part, breaking many things, but having the possibility to modify it as I went along. In this way I raced a boat that was not old, but very reliable.”

A GOOD BOAT IS NOT ENOUGH

You don’t win an Ostar by accident. Nor is a reliable boat enough. Three other ingredients are missing: the first is talent, and Ciccio Manzoli, who has been sailing since he was a young boy on the Dinghy in the Gulf of Tigullio, has always demonstrated that. The second is experience: he has been going on offshore boats since ’74. Among the boats in which he has been a protagonist are the Half Tonner Attenti a quei due (rigged with his brother Maurizio), the three-quarter Easy Perfection and Indulgence, and the legendary Ganbare, One Tonner designed by Doug Peterson, which Ciccio brought back to racing in 1988 after a thorough refit. Then three Ostars (1992, 1996, 2000). “Good for a fourth,” he joked in the GdV.

The Cotonella Adventure

The third ingredient behind Ciccio Manzoli’s venture is equally important: namely, a solid and reliable partner who believed in the values of sailing and the Atlantic challenge. Cotonella, a true Italian excellence in the world of underwear, founded in 1972 by Maurizio Zannièr in Edolo, in the upper Val Camonica, has been alongside the sailor for a good five years. A five-year period ended in the best of ways. That is why it is worth telling how the association between Manzoli and the brand only seemingly far from the sailing world was born. The secrets of the “liaison” between Manzoli and Cotonella are revealed to us, twenty years later, by Leonardo Servi, an expert sailor and historical agent of the Lombard brand.

Tells Servi, “I met Ciccio in 1992 when I started to get into offshore sailing, thanks to Giovanni Soldini who was hanging out with mutual friends in Florence. On the occasion of the ’96 Ostar, which Ciccio tackled with an Adventure 30, I went to Plymouth to help him prepare the boat that had arrived by land. It was a wonderful experience that I was able to make “mine” so much that I had no difficulty in presenting the Ostar 2000 project to Cotonella, a company I have worked for since 1989. The hull was my Mahatma, a 33′ hollow shell by Ben Lexcen with everything else designed by Andrea Romanelli, Ciccio was nice, serious and reliable and I had so much confidence in his abilities, that when we went together to Cotonella to sit in front of the ownership we were able to convey this enthusiasm and the company fully shared the idea of supporting us. At the 2000 start in Plymouth, I went there with Cotonella owner Maurizio Zannier and his wife, who were thunderstruck by the pathos and courage of all those skippers preparing to cross the ocean, by the air in that “circus” that is ocean racing. And from seeing Cotonella’s flag flying amidst those of the big French sponsors. The first days where Ciccio was in first position were exciting then unfortunately a breakup forced him to retire. That spark of fascination with ocean solo racing was not extinguished in Cotonella and support was assured even when the Cotonella Tri project for the 2005 Ostar was presented. The rest is history. Twenty years have passed, but the Cotonella name still remains indelibly linked to this enterprise.”

COTONELLA AND THE CHRONICLE OF A HISTORIC FEAT

So let’s go over it again, 20 years later, that historic feat of Italian sailing. It starts from Plymouth on May 29. The regatta is immediately full of twists and turns, after a few days of sailing many competitors are forced to retire due to adverse weather conditions, among them also three of Franco’s opponents, first the British Ross Hobson, then the French Anne Caseneuve and the French-American Etienne Giroire. At this point there were three left to vie for the lead, Roger Langevin on the 50-footer Branec IV, Pierre Antoine on the 43-footer Spirit, and Manzoli, who put up a tight fight with a finale worthy of a movie: on June 14, Cotonella accuses a delay from Langevin of more than 200 miles: it seems over, but within 24 hours the twist, thanks to the tactical choice of keeping further north where a cooler wind blows. Manzoli on Cotonella is first and overall winner of the Ostar regatta, born in 1960 from a bet between the celebrated Sir Francis Chichester and Colonel Blondie Hasler. The most prestigious of solo regattas.

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