Wednesday June 4th.
Just a few days until the start of the Giraglia, the legendary Rolex Cup regatta. Three days of regattas along the coast before the start of the long race which, starting from the port of Saint Tropez, will take us round Ile du Levant and then on to the rocky island north of Corsica, La Giraglia.  After circumnavigating La Giraglia we will head north to Genova, 240 miles of hard work and passion for the sea.

VAEM terzo will participate with a crew from “ViverelaVela”, one of the most established sailing schools in Milan. The crew has been taken over by an enormous sense of euphoria, and to tell you the truth last night I too found it very difficult. Despite the physical tiredness from all the preparations leading up to the transfer of the boat from La Spezia to Saint Tropez, I was too excited to fall asleep.

Thursday night we will head west: leaving the gulf of La Spezia we will cross the channel of Portovenere, with the island of Palmaria on our left and the small church of San Pietro high up on the rocky promontory to our right.

On the way back we will all have many tales to tell.
Godspeed.

Friday June 6th.
Our departure is later than scheduled.
First stop (essential) is Portovenere where we load onboard a second self-inflating life raft: on the return trip there will be 8, VAEM terzo was supplied with a life raft that only takes 6.

We sail together with another boat from the school, which had to stop for fuel.
Shortly we will leave our moorings in Potovenere and head directly to Saint Tropez, 150 miles of navigation.
Arrival forecast for Sunday morning.

Monday June 9th
Sun and a 15 knot wind from the North East. Not bad as a start.
Amidst the chaos along the starting line, VAEM terzo lines up, carefully keeping herself windward. Immediately the cannon fires, we search for wind in the North of the bay: we are fast but it’s hard work sailing back up.
Our points of reference are there (our companions in Lally me, the other boat from the Viverelavela sailing school taking part in the Giraglia, the almost all-girl crew of Falco (hawk), our tier partners, the English in Dolphin) and we keep an eye on all of them.
Everything goes well until the second buoy, which we cut fine, even if we lose water in sailing back up wind because of our excessive catenary curve.
Now’s our chance: on a beam reach we are the best (or almost). We hoist the spinnaker and we know that we’ll take nearly all of them, one by one.
When we round the third buoy, we’ll quickly overtake some boats, with the blasting and gusting winds.
Three miles before the third buoy one of the countless gusts of wind hits us, causing the spinnaker to explode.
For a moment our hearts drop. Then suddenly, in a frenzy of activity, the crew quickly responds.
We quickly haul down the remains of the spinnaker and raise the Genoa.
At the third buoy we’re still in the race; rounding the buoy we gybe and hoist another spinnaker. The oversize yachts that file past us like arrows steal our wind, but in the meantime VAEM terzo is able to regain a few positions.
At the fourth buoy we arrive at full speed, sailing before the wind. We gybe again.
Less than one mile to go when disaster strikes. The guy-line of the spinnaker inexplicably comes out of the yardarm; the spinnaker gets tangled and we have to unravel it; the sheet of the Genoa gets tangled with the downhaul  and we are no longer able to hoist the Genoa despite Andrea’s acrobatics who jumps around the bow like a ferret (even above the shrouds when necessary). At the finish line we are a minute behind second place in our category but the law of averages won’t compensate us for all the hard work we put in on this unlucky day.

Tuesday June 10th
Number 1 (bowman): Andrea Anderloni.
Number 2 (mast): David merlini.
Number 3 (halyard): Davide Dattoli.
Number 4 (tailer): Paolo Cavaletto.
Number 5 (guy-line): again Paolo.
Number 6 (mainsail): Claudio Meazza.
Number 7 (tactical): Roberto Personi.
Number 8 (helmsman): again Roberto.
And we can’t forget our VIP guest on board today: in her fourth month of pregnancy, the psychiatrist Anna Omboni (that’s why we only let her take pictures…).

Are you lucky enough to know any of these people?
Good, because you can tell your grandchildren, your neighbours and your friends who in turn can tell their friends and their grandchildren, and so on.
I know that you won’t believe us but today was VAEM terzo’s day. A fantastic day, maybe unrepeatable.
SECOND. We finished second in the third coastal regatta of the Rolex Cup trophy.
****
From 10:30 till 14:00 VAEM terzo cools her heels in the harbour because of the absence of wind. While waiting under the hot sunshine someone goes for a swim. Then at 14:00, the countdown is perfect, we reach the starting line at speed, right as the cannon fires. Sailing close hauled we slip between the umpire’s boat and the pack: the leeward boat sails close and tries to force us the other side of the buoy but we are too fast and we pass. Other boats get caught up at the buoy and have to go back and remake their pass  
There’s also a collision but VAEM terzo is already ahead.
The great tactician throws us on the left side of the regatta field while the entire group of the other competitors leans against the right-hand shoreline of the bay. You might ask yourself why he always wants to do things differently…
It’s a straight run, no tacking, right up to the lane line.
The pack is in the distance on the right side of the regatta field, the buoy is still far ahead but we’ll have only to tack once and the wind is all ours.
We reach the buoy on a port tack and we’ve practically caught up with the boats from the first group that left earlier, much bigger and faster than us.
It’s going to be difficult to gybe at the buoy because of all the traffic that’s bunched up around it, but VAEM terzo is once again able to keep leeward, overtakes a First 50 and squeezes past the buoy. Perfect gybe.
The spinnaker is quickly raised and having the number 2 makes the difference. The shortage of wind and the late start forced the organizers to shorten the race and so we now head directly to the finish line inside the gulf of Saint Tropez. VAEM terzo runs along the same side that she took on the wind, but the wind suddenly drops and after a while we have to turn to take us along the coast, to the entrance of the gulf.
We enter the gulf tacking to port.
The concentration of boats increases and we try to avoid being overtaken by the others. In getting the most from the wind means that when we gybe we’re almost inside Saint Tropez cemetery. We tack starboard and end up with the finish line dead on, we cut the line.
We feel that we’ve done extremely well - behind us there are still so many swollen spinnakers in pursuit - but to ward off bad luck, we fold away the sails, trying not to think about the result.
We await the official results with our eyes glued to the score-board: it finishes with a grand toast of beer.
Our tactician justified every crazy decision that he made: we finished ahead of a load other boats of higher rating. He is, without doubt, a genius (just like the person writing).
What can we say about the party?
We won’t say much, but some say it’s worth entering the Giraglia just to be here, at the Saint Tropez castle with the fireworks, the shows, exquisite food, rivers of wine and of course the well earned champagne. We won’t even talk about the splendid young ladies present.     

Wednesday June 11th.
At 14:20, after a 2 hour wait, VAEM terzo finally leaves for the long regatta, the famous Giraglia. Inside the gulf of Saint Tropez there’s little wind.
All the crews have 20 minutes to pass the starting line. We manage to get going, as always, from the side of the umpire’s boat. We go over the starting line, exceeding the maximum limits by a large margin. We’ll have to wait and see the decision of the jury.  
As soon as we are outside the gulf, the music changes. We go from a violin sonata to an orchestra symphony. We find a 20 knot wind from the SW; the boats are sailing close to the wind towards La Formigue rocks, leaving them on the left before changing course for La Giraglia.  It’s hard sailing with a fresh gusting wind. The boats start jockeying for position, everyone at full speed. Suddenly there’s a boat in font of us, she’s tacking left and she’s not giving us the right of way. By diving into the wind’s dead zone, we avoid a collision by the skin of our teeth. If we had insisted on having the right of way, a collision would have been inevitable. The adrenaline never stops. At the next pass, it’s us who are tacking left: we bear up to let them pass aiming for their stern so as not to lose water. A gust of wind and the late slackening of the Genoa force us to broach. We pass astern by only a few centimetres. We got through that one.   
Our hearts skip a beat: for a few moments nobody speaks. We press on, heeling over: the wind picks up and it starts to get very choppy. A little further ahead we get confirmation that the situation is not for amateur sailors. One of the racing yachts has capsized and is showing its hull, the crew is in the life raft and help is already on its way. A few meters closer and we see that she’s missing her centreboard. While wind and waves continue to get stronger, we press on in the same conditions until we reach the rocks of La Formigue.We leave them on our left at 20:20. Straight ahead lays Ile du Levantes.
We head for the Giraglia while in the East night begins to fall. We hoist the spinnaker because we are men of daring. Luck is not on our side: the spinnaker halyard gets fouled and while lowering the spinnaker it finishes in the water. One part gets caught in the stanchion and the spinnaker rips.
The boats closest to us catch up and overtake us: they are also on the verge of using their spinnakers, in these conditions of wind and sea they think again.
We are completely exposed to wind and sea but finally after six hours of hard going, of fighting the power of the wind and the sea, VAEM terzo rights herself and the sailing becomes a little more pleasurable. Giorgio, the only one you would bet on never to have sea-sickness goes below and cooks us some unforgettable pasta.
Pasta in the dark, in the cockpit with a rough sea and VAEM terzo gliding over waves that you only catch a glimpse of but feel their full force, is better than a dinner from the Michelin Guide. When we leave Ile du Levantes behind us, we feel wind from the SW make itself felt. We glide on at 10 knots, on waves that we can’t see. Roberto has been steering for more than 8 hours without the sea giving him a moment to catch his breath.
Towards 23:00 we switch on the bridge lights and we take in a reef. Some of us remember when we did this during a course, under the sun in calm waters and a light wind. Out here it’s a totally different thing. It’s night; the sea by now is really nasty, wind SSW and not less than 25 knots. Waves hitting us over the quarter deck forcing us to correct continuously correct. Roberto orders us to put on safety lines and life jackets. If you look at the spray coming over the bow and flooding the cockpit, you would think we were on a film set for a documentary on Cape Horn.
After 12 hours asks to be relieved and Giorgio replaces him. The first chance to sleep or better, try to rest. Getting to the bow cabin is a fight that lasts 10 minutes. Try to imagine what it’s like to lay down in the middle of sails, sacks and clothes thrown around by who-knows-who and try to fall asleep.
Whoever stays behind in the cockpit is going to have this for another good two hours. During the night Giorgio, Andrea and Paolo take turns at the helm. Towards 5 o’clock we can finally let out a reef and whoever is on watch can enjoy watching the dolphins playing near the side of VAEM. At about nine o’clock, everyone is in the cockpit with an unexpected sun and a much more acceptable sea. Someone can even drink his coffee. In the distance we can just catch a glimpse of Corsica and we raise our third and last spinnaker. The recommendations from the captain seem more like threats than friendly reminders. Towards the coast the spinnaker swells and we sail forth at 7.5 knots even if, by now, the wind has dropped a little. Since the start we have never gone under 7 knots, sometimes reaching 8/9.
Now the sun is high and everyone can relax a little. At 21 miles from the Giraglia rocks we think that most of the race lies behind us.

Friday June 13th.
We expected the mistral and the mistral came. Luckily it’s not the force 6 that some Jonah had forecast.
Passing La Giraglia, VAEM terzo starts at 6/7 knots. The boats that passed the lighthouse with us are immediately left behind. Good sign: now it’s a race straight towards north, straight to Genova, weather permitting.
The sky offers us an incredible variety of colours and then, slowly, it gets dark. The night is full of stars and if it weren’t for the fact that we had to sail VAEM terzo we would stay gazing at the heavens.
South of us, in the sea off Corsica, really bad weather has been forecast. However, north of us, in the Ligurian Sea, we can already glimpse lightning in the distance, lighting up the clouds. We have to escape the bad weather from the south and hope that the storms north of us move before we get there.
The lights of the ferries that sometimes pass in front of us, the reflections of light from the plankton caused when the dolphins jump by the side of VAEM and the little navigation lights of our adversaries spread across the sea keep us company.
In the cockpit tonight, as happens often, you’re too tired to speak and everyone tries to concentrate on their own tasks or get some rest in whatever way they can.
In a regatta on the open seas, tiredness is not something to disregard: losing concentration means losing water, making mistakes and, sometimes, exposing yourself to risk.
Now we are all very tired. Those who have to stay watch with a little envy the first shift going below decks to get some rest. Only Marco steers happily, looking at the stars, ignoring just a little bit the information coming from the instruments and preferring to aim for Ursa Major.
At 5:30 the wind drops and turns towards the third quadrant. We decide to use the spinnaker and so Marco and Andrea are woken up to rig it. To tell the truth the wind is not very convincing and the two poor souls go back to sleep.
At 6:30 the aft wind seems more constant and Roberto is woken up to hoist the spinnaker after not even half an hour’s sleep. With the spinnaker hoisted VAEM terzo leaps forward. With the light of day we start keeping an eye on the three or four boats that we can just see on the horizon. We are 25 miles from Genova and the light SW pushing us along under the spinnaker gives us 6 knots. Where can they be, Falco, Dolphin and, above all, our friends in Lally me?
After 10 miles of navigation we have the first confirmation that the weather forecast from last night wasn’t so wrong. Ahead of us the horizon is black, continuously streaked red by lightning. Somebody points forward and we can see one, then two, three waterspouts moving along the white line that separates the sea from the black of the sky. There you are. This is the type of thing that we really don’t like. The spectacle is extraordinary, but we are just a little too close to be able to fully enjoy it. Roberto decides to immediately lower the spinnaker. The sail Merry-go-round starts. The olympic jib is hoisted. We briefly discuss whether it would be better to take in a reef in order to confront the storm or keep the sail full and gain a little speed. We are in a race and so we decide on speed. The storm could always spare us…..
The wind turns towards north forcing us to take a more leeward route. We are no longer heading for Genova, but we have to sail up on the wind. The storm isn’t going to spare us: it tells us this with an explosion of thunder and a downpour of water. Now the rain is a flood. It’s also raining orders from the cockpit and those who went below to get the oilskins have to run back on deck. Giorgio, oilskins and red sou’wester, impassive at the helm, he looks like Captain Ahab. The waterspouts have either moved themselves east or have dissolved, either way we have calmed down a lot. We enter into a calm zone, in the meantime the wind has moved round again into the third quadrant: we can’t veer away, the finish line seems to be moving away. We lower the light Genoa and go back to the spinnaker.  
Little by little the coast materialises and also the other boats spread across the sea that now seem to be converging together towards 44°22’.670 North and 8°58’.860 East where the finish line awaits in front of Boccadasse. We try not to fall off and not suffer the insult of being overtaken in sight of the finish line.
It’s the final sprint. We are all concentrating, only the voice of Paolo can be heard, who continues to give us speed, heading and distance. I try to pinpoint the finish line with binoculars, between a yellow buoy and the umpire’s boat.
VAEM terzo is engaged by a First 40.7 right when the wind turns again, forcing us to lower the spinnaker. We hoist the light Genoa.
The finish line is now ahead of us: the First 40.7 doesn’t give up but doesn’t catch up.
We manage not to fall off. They, on the other hand, have to make another tack. They never catch us.
At 12:33’.02’’ after 46 hours and 13 minutes of sailing we cross the line leaving the umpire’s boat on the right, then we radio in the name and sail number of our splendid boat.
We are as happy as sand boys: we have the impression that we have done well, and above all, we finished.
We lower and enter the port by motor, according to the YC Italiano procedures (including a ridiculous declaration from the captain who must give his word not to have used the engine during the race).
On a First 40.7 some one said: “they’re the ones who kicked our arse”. How gratifying.
We see again the boats and crews that we had met In Saint Tropez, who, in some part of the sea, had accompanied us for two days and two nights.
It has been a great experience, but probably we are too tired to enjoy it at the moment.
We have got another 50 miles to take the boat back to La Spezia. En route we call home and they tell us that the first results are already on the internet. Unbelievable: we are seventh in category and 51st over all out of 235 participants. 
We start cheering like lunatics, then we go back to sleep, curled up all over the boat.
It went well.

And our friends in Lally me?
After starting from an excellent position, they had to endure a load of problems: they lost the mainsail batten, had hard work sailing on the wind in a rough sea until beam reach and then, in the morning towards La Giraglia, the spinnaker gets ripped. In sailing up towards Genova, after a good crossing, they get penalised by an unbelievably dead calm. In the evening, when they pass the finish line, they don’t know that the hardest trial is yet to come: the passage towards La Spezia in 3 meter waves and with hailstones as big as marbles. This morning, when they moor the boat, they are exhausted. Someone shows us the bruises on their hands left by the hailstones.
They made it as well and that’s a good enough reason to celebrate and raise a glass together.

Thanks.
I would like to thank, above all, the crew for having given me the permission to live this adventure together, for believing in it, giving me faith (also in moments of great difficulty) and for creating a beautiful atmosphere on VAEM terzo.
Thanks to Andrea, bowman, acrobat and ships comedian, for being able to rig and unrig anything in a few seconds, even with the sea up to his neck, for relieving me at the helm even in the worst conditions and always shouting unrepeatable comments into the wind.
Paolo, do it all, from helm to mast, who supplied the sponsors’ logos and when lowered to attach them to the hull was surrounded by millions of jellyfish on the war path. Who knows how to manoeuvre the spinnaker with frightening ability, who we risked losing at sea, who never knew when to keep his mouth shut not even at times when it would have been better to pray in silence and who, after a collapse in the middle of the sea, manned his station of hard graft as if nothing had happened.
Davide, at the halyard, who took orders from everyone and appeared to be Beethoven-who, in a trice, had been thrown into the middle of the sea-and when he played the wrong note had to put up with some rather colourful comments without ever losing his crafty sense of humour.
Claudio, on the mainsail, which he never left not even at night and when finished immediately became ships reporter to quickly update our famous website www.vaemterzo.it, who more than a beginner seemed to be some one who had lived his entire life surrounded by wind and sea.
Giorgio, left tailer. He can do anything too, always calm and knowledgeable, who at the helm looked like Ahab, a true sailor who did what was asked even when we knew he was completely against the idea.
Marco, right tailer and spinnaker guy-line, quiet, precise and kind, who seemed not to be on-board, but for our luck he was, especially in the difficult moments.
Michele, guy-line and odd job man, even tempered, sometimes a little worried, who knew how to fit in well with the crew and to be a great help to everyone without ever making the situation heavy.

I would like to thank all our sponsors, who made it possible for us to take part in this adventure in a competitive way, thanks again for all the nautical material and services supplied:

AEGI CLAMPS
AKRON
CALDIC
GOA
GR GROUP
INALCO
LTH PARTNERS
VIVERELAVELA
ZEON ITALIA

I would like to thank Simonetta Gola who made sure that our info got on the web site punctually.

Thanks to Marco Pomi, sail-maker ELVSTROM SOBSTAD, and Natale for theprecious advicethat only expert sailors like them can give.

I would like to thank all of those who followed and supported us from home, because also this made a difference.

Roberto Personi.