Vespucci Tallship arrives in Trieste today to celebrate Barcolana 51

Barcolana 51 Presented by Generali © Barcolana

At 8.30 this morning, the tall ship Vespucci berthed at Stazione Marittima in Trieste: admired by the entire community, the much awaited Italian Navy tall ship is in Trieste for its 19th time and will stay until Sunday, to celebrate Barcolana51 presented by Generali with the sailing world.

Many are the activities that will take place aboard, including open to the public guided tours, press conferences and prize-giving ceremonies of Barcolana events. Then, at 9.30 am, the students of the Follow me project reached Barcolana51 on time: the students of the Nautical High School of Trieste will actively participate in the event helping with berthing and offering reception services. Their involvement in Barcolana will allow them to learn more and at the same time will ensure that shipowners receive a warm welcome and support upon their arrival in Trieste.

Barcolana -3 - With three days left to the regatta, 1570 boats have registered for Barcolana. This morning's calm sea and rain were strategic for some of the teams, who decided to go out to sea to test their boats on light wind. Thw weather agency Osmer Arpa has published the first weather reports with the weather forecast for the weekend: summer temperatures and light wind will characterize this weekend and will influence the tactitians' decisions on loads and sails.

"We went out to test the lightest sails - said the members of the PortoPiccolo Tempus Fugit team - especially the big stern sail we didn't use in the last edition. We sailed well and going out at sea provided us with very useful information for Sunday. We're ready to race with our competitive spirit, our new sail is a powerful weapon."

Also the Golfo di Trieste team went out to train this morning: "The weather forecast for Sunday 13 October - said their skipper, Francesca Clapcich - predicts light, almost non-existent wind: beyond doubt, this could give us an advantage, since our boat performs at its best in those conditions. The crew is light as well: hopefully the weather conditions will favour us, fingers crossed! We've been training since Wednesday to find the boat's best trim, to know which sails to use, to make sensible decisions and to be quick and competitive right from the start. The coming days are fundamental, we're all focused on our goal and we can't wait to race this Sunday".

In the meantime, last year's winning team (captained by Furio and Gabriele Benussi with Lorenzo Bressani) will return their trophy back to the organizing committee in a special ceremony, scheduled for 5.30 pm. The crew hasn't trained these days and will come back at sea tomorrow morning. "The last few days have been demanding - stated Furio Benussi - our goal is to hand the cup back to the organizing committee just for a few days and then keep it with us for another year".

Unplastic the sea - The initiative "Unplastic the sea" ("Splastichiamo il mare") kicks off with the 51st edition of Barcolana, and it is promoted by the WWF Miramare Marine Protected Area together with Hera Group and EstEnergy, thanks to the collaboration of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and Arpa FVG.

Until the end of the event, all visitors can test themselves in an engaging competition on a large screen, located at the Hera-EstEnergy stand at Barcolana Village: participants (two at a time) will have to pedal as fast as they can in a 30-second time limit, riding on special fish-submarines, to catch as much plastic waste as possible in the virtual sea.

Everybody can help thanks to this charity competition: the more people will participate in "Unplastic the sea", the greater will be the amount of money donated by Hera Group and EstEnergy to the WWF Miramare Marine Protected Area project. Raising €10,000 is the final target of this initiative.

At the end of each challenge, participants can download a short video and share it on their own social media with the hashtag #splastichiamoilmare, to recommend their friends that they do this simple, real and entertaining action to protect Trieste's sea.

Unicredit - In the meantime, Unicredit, Barcolana51's sponsor, has organized a meeting on naval leasing that will be held this afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce. "Economics, markets and naval leasing: following the right course for investments and loans" was the title of the event, in which Vicky Song was present as special guest.

The Venezia Giulia Collio Cup at sea tomorrow - Regattas will be back tomorrow in Barcolana, with the second edition of Barcolana Invitational - Venezia Giulia Collio Cup. In its second edition, the Venezia Giulia Collio Cup is an invitational regatta raced aboard one-design J70s: the sailing club Società Velica di Barcola and Grignano (SVBG) invites the sailing clubs of the Gulf with the highest number of members participating in the Barcolana regatta to create a fair competition between clubs coming from the same sea and flying the same burgee.

The competition includes a series of qualifying regattas raced on very short windward-leeward courses, anticipating the "stadium racing" final regatta, which the public can enjoy from land, just a few steps from Piazza Unità, on 11 October at 6 pm. 12 teams will be racing this year: Società Nautica Pietas Julia (skipper Giuliano Chiandussi), Società Nautica Laguna (skipper Francesco Manzin), Società Triestina Sport del Mare (skipper Alan Travaglio), Società Triestina della Vela (skipper Andrea Savio), Società Velica Oscar Cosulich (skipper Alessandro Marega), TPK Sirena (skipper Robert De Lucia), Yacht Club Adriaco (skipper Martha Faraguna), Yacht Club Cupa (skipper Mirko Juretic), Diporto Nautico Sistiana (skipper Alberto Leghissa), Circolo della Vela Muggia (skipper Matija Succi), Società Nautica Grignano (skipper Nicoletta Rossi) and Società Velica di Barcola e Grignano (skipper Francesca Russo Cirillo).

Barcolana and the Collio area participated together with SVBG in the Round the Island Race, in Cowes (UK): Gialuz concluded - "a chance to show how sport and promotion can create important collaborations, a great advantage for the promotion of the products made in FVG."

The sailing club Società Triestina della Vela (STV), winner of the Venezia Giulia Collio Cup in the 2018 edition, is the one to beat. Last year, 10 crews raced in the regatta with a very light wind. STV arrived in first place, after a first and fourth place scored in the qualifying tests, followed by the Italian Naval League (division of Trieste) and Diporto Nautico Sistiana.

The hulls of the mixed offshore European championship are on their way - The first edition of the Barcolana Nastro Rosa Mixed Offshore European Championship is expected to arrive tonight or tomorrow: the European championship that launches seven mixed crews that will face, for the first time, the new Olympic specialty that will be tested in Paris 2024, a regatta offshore on a 30-foot keeled hull, in a small crew consisting of a man and a woman.

The European Championship, with the patronage of Eurosaf, the European Sailing Federation and FIV, set off from St. Mark's square in Venice yesterday to reach Trieste after 187 miles of navigation: the arrival will be in front of Barcola. Crews benefited from a stiff wind while crossing the Adriatic sea from Venice heading towards the Croatian coast, while today they sailed round San Giovanni in Pelago continuing down to Lošinj with a calm sea. A light Bora wind is expected to challenge them as they sail their way up towards Trieste. The event is organized by SSI and Barcolana, with the Nastro Rosa brand, the event that will soon collect the legacy of the Giro d'Italia. Competing for the title, seven teams from Austria, Belgium, France, Australia, Italy, Spain and the USA: tracking to follow the regatta, www.ssi.events/tracking-nastrorosa-offshore.

What's on tomorrow - The English sailor Dee Caffari will arrive today late in evening and will be one of the protagonists of Barcolana as from tomorrow. The first edition of Generali Sea Talk is scheduled for tomorrow at 5.30 pm, a brand-new event entering the Barcolana this year and organized with the presenting sponsor to talk about Barcolana's main topics. This is the first event hosted by Generali after the inauguration of its newly refurbished Palazzo Berlam. Two international sailors will be the key guests of this event, Dee Caffari and Vicky Song, who is the first Chinese woman to sail around the world.

At 7.30 pm at Revoltella Museum we will talk about the Fastnet race. The event will be hosted by Fabio Colivicchi, and guests will be Francesco Ettorre, Riccardo Bonadeo, David Brunskill, Chicco Isenburg and Bruno Catalan, Dondo Ballanti, Piro Onoranti, Giovanni Sicola, Silvano Kapelj, and Bob Fisher, one of the greatest sailing journalists in the world.

One of the greatest and most famous sailing photographers from Trieste, Franco Pace, documented the 1979 Fastnet race that went down in history for the terrible storm that struck it. His documentary (narrating voice: Paolo Rumiz) will tell us about the Italian expedition, which was then made up of 3 crews that later gained much success in sailing with yachts like Azzurra. Together with Barcolana, this documentary will remember and pay tribute to the Admiral's Cup and the beginning of the golden age of Italian sailing.