In 2007, Alberto Bona – the skipper of IBSA’s project Sailing into the Future. Together – was twenty years old and dreamed of sailing the sea with a self-built boat. A dream that came true because, with a small drift built in his garage, he crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea solo, thus starting a much bigger adventure: his life as a skipper.
Through a storytelling project that traces the most important stages in Alberto Bona’s life, IBSA chose to tell a story of talent (#atalentstory), a journey full of experiences, emotions and enthusiasm. The six videos, available on the website ibsasailing.com, highlight the passion and courage of a young man who is making his life’s dream come true.
In the first three episodes, Alberto retraces the beginnings of his career: the incredible emotions of the first voyages, the close encounters with the whales, the first experience in crewed regattas, through the first Italian championship on Mini 6.50 in 2012, up to the 3,000 miles, in 2013, of the first Mini Transat, the solo transatlantic regatta from France to the Caribbean.
In the fourth episode, Alberto takes us to a crucial moment in his life as a navigator, when the desire to race against the best begins to emerge, in the categories where the world’s strongest sailors compete. In 2017, Alberto Bona met Giovanni Soldini, who lent him his Class40 to take on the Transat Jacques Vabres, a double-handed transatlantic race that is considered among the greatest events in French ocean sailing.
After this experience on a Class40, as Alberto tells us in the fifth episode, the collaboration with Soldini continues aboard the trimaran Maserati Multi 70, which takes him from Japan to Hong Kong, to the tour around Europe and to the Transpac, a Pacific regatta in 2019.
The sixth and last video tells about Alberto’s experience on a new class, the Figaro. And here the music changes, as Alberto has to test himself with a different kind of navigation. Stages are shorter, only a few days long, but characterised by complicated routes, with rocks and difficult currents, among the strongest in the world. Practicing on a Figaro is for Alberto an important opportunity for growth, one which allows him to become a more accomplished and experienced skipper.
This wealth of experience, years of sailing, competitions at the highest levels, collaboration and interaction with other great skippers will be essential to tackle the Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe, which will start on November 6. Passion, courage, determination and heart will do the rest.
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