Alberto Bona wins the RORC Caribbean 600 in Class40: the new season of Sailing into the Future. Together promises to be full of emotions

The project Sailing into the Future. Together takes off again with a sport calendar full of events and environmental and social sustainability initiatives. The Class40 IBSA will participate in six international competitions – from the Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay, to the Celtic Sea and the Mediterranean – for a total run of over 13,000 miles.

“We are ready for a new sporting season, which will certainly be very demanding, but which we are sure will also give us great emotions”, stated Giorgio Pisani, Vice President Southern Europe at IBSA and Project Leader. “The Route du Rhum was a very important test bench, an experience that allowed us to test not only the new Class40 IBSA, but the entire team. We now begin 2023 with an even greater enthusiasm for the regattas awaiting Alberto and his new crew, united and resolute to do better and better”.

The first regatta, the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Caribbean 600, started on February 20, and has already confirmed the first success of the season. An outstanding first place earned by an all-new team. Alberto Bona has indeed sailed on the Class40 IBSA with his friend-adversary Luke Berry, the French owner of a twin Class40, the no. 1 project of Sam Manuard’s Mach 5; Luca Bertacchi, Alberto’s team manager; and Spanish skipper Pablo Santurde del Arco, who will be a stable member of the team also in the other regattas of the season. A crew which, proving to be a winner, reached the top step of the podium with a sailing time of 2 days, 13 hours, 7 minutes and 18 seconds, with an over 14-minute advantage on the second classified, Ambrogio Beccaria.

In 2023 also the inclusive sailing activities will continue, in collaboration with sailing clubs of Switzerland, France and Italy, as well as the environmental sustainability initiatives with Sport for Nature, partner of the project Sailing into the Future. Together.

THE 2023 REGATTAS

In this second season, the Class40 IBSA will cross the Atlantic three times and will participate in difficult and very challenging regattas. After the RORC 600, the Class40 IBSA will return from Antigua to Europe to participate, on April 1, in the Dèfi Atlantique (Atlantic Challenge), a two-leg regatta Guadeloupe-Horta (Azores Islands)-La Rochelle. It will be the first ocean test bench of this year for the IBSA team, who will participate in the regatta with a crew of three: besides Alberto and Pablo, the third navigator is being selected.

In June it will be the turn of the Normandy Channel, a 1,000-mile regatta starting and finishing in Caen, Normandy, with a crew of two (Alberto and Pablo), while in July the Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables – the Atlantic regatta between France and the Azores archipelago – will take place: the Alberto-Pablo duo will sail the Class40 IBSA for about 3,000 miles in the ocean, for an estimated sailing time of about two weeks. Just one week later, the IBSA team will compete in the legendary Rolex Fastnet Race, one of the toughest, most iconic and best-loved regattas for sailors from all over Europe, departing from Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, in Great Britain, and arriving in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France, after rounding the legendary lighthouse on the Irish coast.

The second half of 2023 will instead be dedicated to the Transat Jacques Vabre, the great goal of the season, an event eagerly awaited by all European ocean sailors, which will start from Le Havre (Brittany, France) on October 29, and end in Martinique, in the Caribbean, after 4,250 miles of navigation, with a crew of two.

INCLUSIVE SAILING AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

In parallel with the sporting calendar, Sailing into the Future. Together will carry out a series of initiatives dedicated to inclusive sailing. In the spring, the spotlights will turn on Italy and on the Punta Ala Yacht club (Grosseto, Italy), to which IBSA donated two Hansa 303 boats, intended for people with physical and cognitive disabilities. In June we will move to Monaco to talk about sustainability: the 2023 edition of the Sport for Nature Awards – assigned to athletes, companies, institutions that have distinguished themselves for their sensitivity to environmental sustainability issues through their initiatives and sport-related actions – will be celebrated in the Principality. IBSA will be a candidate to receive the award for its project Sailing into the Future. Together, in the category “Company for social initiatives”.

Still, once again in the summer period, it will be the turn of an important sporting event linked to the themes of inclusion, which will see Switzerland and the Velabili organisation as protagonists, engaged in sailing activities for people with physical, mental and sensory disabilities at the Lugano Sailing Club. From 17 to 25 June, in fact, the Special Olympics World Games – the largest inclusive sporting event in the world – will held in Berlin, where thousands of athletes with intellectual disabilities will compete together in 26 sports for nine days of exciting antagonism. The crew of Velabili, supported by IBSA, has qualified to participate in the Games, and will fight to bring home the victory.

A year truly full of activities and emotions, all updates are always available on the website www.ibsasailing.com and on the Facebook channel. Follow us!