lunedì 13 settembre 2010

At sea!

September 13th, 2010.

A boat sliding into the sea is the feeling of a triumph, and the pain of a separation.

The launch is the accomplishment of an idea, turned into a project, that through time, work, disappointments and satisfaction becomes a boat, going at sea.

From this point on, the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro"'s history is not drawn anymore on a project from 1919.

Ahead of her bow is the Sea, adventures, perils, the future.

But, that's another story.

The rigging

One of the most fascinating things in a sailing boat is, until sails are unfurled, the apparently tangling amount of lines and ropes, each of them with a defined duty, perfectly symmetric around the mast.
Position and length of standing or running rigging must be accurately studied and tested to balance safety, performances, manoeuvrability and hundreds more factors that can only be tested under sailing.
Fulvio Cafiero and his friends of the "Circolo Nautico Marina di Alimuri", that will train the crew of the lateen rigged gozzo “Santa Maria del Lauro”, assist Michele Cafiero in the rigging work. The splices, simple joints of ropes of unparalleled elegance, are winded, the mast is erected in the highest point of the cave, the bowsprit is connected to the prow.
When this task will be accomplished, the boat will be ready for the launch, at last.

mercoledì 8 settembre 2010

The Yacht Club "Marina di Alimuri"

Back in 1983, sailing was a distant memory at Marina di Alimuri.
Wooden oars boats and “sandolini", traditional canoes, were slowly giving place to fiberglass ones, the last, ignored “Cap Horniers” met by the sea overlooking the sunset, telling each other memories that would never share with anyone else.
But meanwhile, an engineer collected relics from the golden age of local sailorship, Italy learned of America’s Cup while United States lost it, and a regional tv’s documentary rediscovered the history of the tall ships built at Marina di Alimuri.
In that year, and in that climate, a group of young men, aided by the occasional advises of old seamen, gathered their sailing boats and founded a yacht club, right on the beach where once the tall ships masts were raised.
It was the start of an era: tiny wooden dinghies, to that point considered ready for the fireplace, were proudly restored and painted, old “gozzi” owners found masts and yards for lateen sail in their attics, and young boys showed up asking to be taught “how to sail”.
A few years later, almost as a joke, the club, now affiliated to the F.I.V., summoned five or six of the oldest boats, some with improvised sails, and set up an almost windless “regatta” of “historical boats”. Since the trophy they ran for was a painting in the style of an illustrious local XIXth century marine painter, the race was dedicated to his name. It was the “Ist Eduardo de Martino Trophy”, that in 2010 will reach the twenty-second edition, and has become one of the most crowded and well known classic sailing boat races of Italy, and it’s the only sailing event in Sorrentine waters.
Fulvio Cafiero, founder, president and soul of the “Circolo Nautico Marina di Alimuri”, that in time relocated to the nearby Marina di Meta, will select and train the lateen sail gozzo “Santa Maria del Lauro”’s crew. Together with the associates of the club, he will help Michele to rig and man a lateen sail boat, at the Marina di Alimuri.

lunedì 6 settembre 2010

The Rudder

"Boat with no rudder, can hold no course", old sea men said to explain the need for authority.
And the rudder is indeed the one element in a boat that could nullify any of her good features, or favourable conditions if unproperly made or handled.
Either under sails or oars, a well designed rudder can provide the boat with the right compromise of manouvrability and directional stability.
Michele Cafiero has chosen two different shapes for his lateen sail gozzo's rudder, and so he makes two different ones, the first wide and deep, the other shorter, for different settings. A large surface, and a deep draught of the rudder's blade, assures a quick response in the tacks, at the cost of a heavier weight and loss of speed, a light and shorter blade makes the boat harder to handle, but faster.
But, as reminded by the old seamen's saying, even more than the rudder shape, the boat's behavior is decided by the helmsman's ability. So after cutting and painting the rudder, and before rigging the "Santa Maria del Lauro", it is time to find and train a crew.