Boating in a Portrait
Boating in a Portrait: people, stories and passion in a photograph
LN launches their new column “Boating in a Portrait” dedicated to the people, Ligurian or otherwise tied to our region, who have left their mark on the nautical industry.
From the moment we founded our magazine, we have been supporting Liguria, with its seafaring history and traditions, it has always been the top region in Italy for the nautical industry. And so it was that chatting with a professional photographer friend of ours, we began “Boating in a Portrait”, a new project, that will accompany our readers over the next few months.
Liguria, without the need to mention Christopher Columbus, has some of the best shipyards, building skiffs, boats and ships based on the traditions of the old master craftsmen. Even Ucina Confindustria Nautica, not by accident, has its head offices in Genoa. Liguria is also the top region in Italy for number of boat mooring spaces, thanks to its nearly 25 thousand moorings for vessels of all sizes. Lastly, since 1960, the most important nautical expo in the Mediterranean has been held in the Ligurian capital, the Salone Nautico Internazionale di Genova [Genoa International Boat Show].
But as we know, it is people who make history, and it is for this reason that we thought it would be best to focus on the people, Ligurian or otherwise tied to our region, who have left their mark in the Italian boating industry or who have deep roots and connections with our sea. We have looked for people to represent all sectors within the nautical industry: from master craftsmen, to builders, managers, and industrialists as well as sailors, journalists, and divers.
For each of them, we will present a photographic portrait taken by Claudio Colombo, together with a brief interview with our journalist, Giuseppe Orrù, which will help us better know our protagonists, even with details on their private lives. Boating in a Portrait comes from the partnership between the well-known Genoese photographer, creator of the charity project, “Genova in un Ritratto [Genoa in a Portrait]”, a gallery of Genoese faces known or recognisable in their “environments”.
In this column, sadly, we were not able to show you some portraits we would have liked to have, to share with you the stories of people like Cesare Sangermani, Giovanni Castagnola, Mario Sciallino, Giulio Versari, Willy Persico, Nucci Novi Ceppellini and many others who have written the history of boating, but who we were not able to photograph because they left us too soon.
In this gallery, there are certainly going to be a number of people missing, who have title to be included and who, due to our skipping them or finding it difficult to contact them, we were not able to include, and for this, we apologise from the beginning. And now, we just have to wait for the first article in our column, in the hopes that it will excite you as much as it did us to discover more about these incredible people.
Fair winds to all.
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Boating in a Portrait
Boating in a Portrait
Fulvio De Simoni: “There are a lot of first boats: the first in the studio where you learn, the first in your own studio, the first you created on your own.”
The architect Fulvio De Simoni is one of the most famous pleasure boat designers in business today. His anti-conformist behaviour is clearly reflected in his designs.
Boating in a Portrait
Francesco “Cicco” Rapetti: “Spending 10 years with Alinghi, and the best crew in the world, was and is an honour that will stay with me forever”
Francesco Rapetti, known as “Cicco”, has taken his place in the history of Italian sailing and the America’s Cup for having been the first Italian to win the Cup and, until now, the only one to have won it twice, both as a challenger and defender leading a crew.
Boating in a Portrait
Andrea Henriquet: “I fell in love with sailing using a 3-metre launch and the adventures told to me by my father and my family of sailors”
Andrea Henriquet is a sailor born in 1961 in Sestri Levante. Skipper and world champion in sailing, he took part in a round the world tour and some of the most important sailing competitions. He is now a sailing instructor and works in training.
Boating in a Portrait
Andrea Balistreri is the youngest master craftsman in Italy: “I work with my father who taught me to take pride in the trade”
Michele and Andrea Balistreri, father and son, are two master craftsmen from La Spezia. They are two of the last artisans building boats for the Palio del Golfo and who still do caulking
Boating in a Portrait
Gino Battaglia: “Being a cabin boy in Loano kicked off my passion. Now I captain yachts that cross the seas of the entire world”
Gino Battaglia, chairman of Italian YachtMasters, an association of captains, shares his story and the behind the scenes of his work, which is to guarantee beautiful cruises to boaters and charters around the world
