Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 - Italian campaign confirmed

by Volvo Ocean Race media on 25 Sep 2009
Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 - An Italian campaign led by Giovanni Soldini has been officially confirmed for the race.

Known as Italia 70, the team will race under the il tricolore with an all-Italian crew for the next two editions of the race.

Soldini, 43, has completed two single-handed round the world races and has made over 30 Atlantic crossings. He is partnering with John Elkann and Carlo Croce on the project.

In announcing the campaign at a press conference at the Yacht Club Italiano in Genova today, Soldini said: 'Sailing this regatta is the dream of my life. I was just a child when the race started back in 1973. I remember thinking about what a great adventure it was, in fact the biggest adventure and I wanted to be part of it.

'This winter I sailed with John Elkann and I transferred this dream onto him as well so I want to say a big thank you to him and Carlo Croce at the start of this new adventure.

Italia 70 has acquired and will compete aboard Ericsson 3, the second generation Volvo Open 70 which carried the Nordic team's hopes in the 2008-09 event. Italia 70 will draw on Italian yachtsmen and women to build a national offshore racing team, which will showcase Italian sailing talent.

'The philosophy behind buying Ericsson 3 was to give ourselves as much time as possible,' Soldini added. 'In Italy we have a lot of very talented sailors but we don't have huge experience so we need to start training immediately.

'We want to build a great team and work on this team as we learn about the boat. Also buying a used boat means you buy the know how of it as well.'

The Italian Sailing Federation, together with Soldini, will develop the first Italian ocean sailing school in parallel with the Volvo Ocean Race.

Environmental causes will also feature prominently in the campaign. Together with a pool of contributing companies, the team will develop relationships with national universities and research centres, which will help them to test environmentally-friendly solutions from energy management to waste disposal.

The team extends a rich history of Italian links with the Whitbread/Volvo. The first race, back in 1973-74 had three Italian entries - Guia skippered by Giorgio Falck, CSeRB skippered by Doi Malingri and Tauranga under the command of Eric Pascoli.

The last fully-Italian entry was Brooksfield skippered by Guido Maisto in 1993-94. Italy's Leonardo Ferragamo entered two boats in the 2001-02 event, the first run under the Volvo banner, but both Amer Sports One and Amer Sports Too were made up of international crews.

The next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will start from Alicante in 2011. The Notice of Race and new Volvo Open 70 Rule will be published in the next fortnight while the route will be confirmed early next year.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org