Ever more intense. After a year made complicated by the Covid 19 pandemic, though no less satisfying thanks to a victory in the Swan One Design Worlds 2020 competition at the prestigious World Gold Cup held in Tuscany last mid-October, the Vitamina Sailing team is ready to return to action; to face a season of regattas even more packed with appointments across Europe.
The team will once again be competing in two classes, the M32 racing catamaran and the Club Swan 36 monotype. A double commitment – in fact triple, as the Vitamina Sailing team will be dropping two M32s into the water – whose objective is to confirm the successes obtained in previous years, in two categories, both characterised by the notable ability of the participants.
To succeed, Vitamina Sailing, supported throughout the season by Cetilar® from pharmaceutics company PharmaNutra – a line of cetylated ester-based medication (CFA) for muscle and joint relief, available in cream, patch and tape – will be backed up by a prime team, coordinated by Team Manager, Matteo De Luca.
The team and calendar of events
Aboard Club Swan 36 Vitamina Cetilar, whose helmsman will be entrepreneur Andrea Lacorte, Gabriele Benussi and Alberto Bolzan, both from Trieste, will be deployed as tactician and trimmer (Diego Battisti, Giovanni Bucarelli, Alessandro Frizzarin and De Luca himself complete the crew).
Multiple award-winning British sailors Ian Williams and Paul Campbell-James will be aboard the M32 catamaran steered again by Lacorte, whereas the second team boat will be entrusted to a team captained by Marco Radman (helmsman) and Lorenzo Bressani (tactician).
Ten is the total number of events scheduled for the 2021 season, five per category, preceded by intense training sessions up until the end of March.
The circuit
The Club Swan 36 circuit will stop at Scarlino (24-29 May), Porto Cervo (21-26 June), Palma di Maiorca (1-7 August and 13-18 September) and Saint Tropez (11-17 October, World category championship), whilst the M32s will be at Sanremo (15-18 April and 6-9 May), Amsterdam (June), Aarhus, Denmark (22-25 July) and Riva del Garda (2-5 September).
“After concluding 2020 in the best way imaginable, our sights are now on raising the bar”, explains the expert, Lacorte, just back from two days training in La Spezia on his M32 catamaran. “We are going to be competing in two challenging categories, but that is exactly what we are looking for: measuring ourselves against the best crews there are. On the M32 we can count on an important partnership with Ian Williams, a sportsman who has won, amongst other things, a number of World match race titles. On board the Swan, I will be with the pair of aces, Benussi-Bolzan, in the context of a fleet that promises to be really well-balanced and competitive. We are ready for everything and can’t wait to get back to competition sailing 100%”.