Queen Mary SC hosted the inaugural Anglo Italian Match Racing Championships for Sight Impaired sailors on May 20-21. The event was held in Sonar keelboats with two Italian teams and two British teams taking part.

The format was for each team to sail four races against each of the other teams, with the top two on points sailing for overall first and second place, and the other teams sailing for third and fourth place.

The concept is the brainchild of Alessandro Gaoso of the Homerus Project who sail on Lake Garda, to encourage blind or partially sighted people to have the same sailing opportunities as the sighted. The project by the end of 1999 had taught 54 people to sail from all over Italy and survives purely on donations. This year Homerus is focussing on taking the concept to other countries.

The competitors were graded against the world blind sailing criteria and the two GBR teams were helmed by Toby Davey and Lucy Hodges. Toby, who won a silver medal in the B3 division at last years world championships in Miami, was joined by Vicki Sheen ( bronze medal winner in the B1 fleet) and Stephen Rolf in the GBR1 team. Lucy Hodges helmed the GBR2 team with the help of John Long (bronze medal winners in the B2 fleet) and Tony Lawton.

The Italian teams consisted of Luigi Bertanza, Giovanni Salvador and Filippa Tolaro in ITA 1 and Federico Zonca, Raul Pietrobon and Giliola Corradi in ITA 2, all graduates of the Homerus Project. The Italian teams were supported by the Cantine della Valtenesi e della Lugana wine cellar, who have developed the exclusive bottles of ‘Bacco di Homerus’. The proceeds from sales are donated to the Homerus Project, and the bottles are printed with an image of the Homerus boats sailing on Lake Garda.

The racing started on Saturday in very light winds, with only one race completed before an enforced early lunch.

The afternoon racing took place in slightly better wind conditions, which at least enabled all the competitors to get used to the boats. The first teams to race were GBR1 and ITA1, with 4 wins to Italy. The GBR2 team had better success against ITA2 with an excellent start in their first race following a close tussle for water on the line, leaving the Italian team for dust.

Each of the two Sonars had a neutral person on board with a radio link to the race officer, who was able to move about the course and be where he needed to be. Flags were not used at all for the start sequence, instead the race officer transmitted every minute to the boats from 7 minutes down to 1 minute, then gave a 30 second countdown to the start, with the information being heard by the crews. One of the Italian crews were so vocal during their start sequence that the race was abandoned as they missed the radio timing and the race was restarted. Some might say that missing the time was of their own making, but the race officer thought otherwise! The sighted person on board, as well as for the radio link, acted as a safety measure in case of problems.

Sunday saw more wind, which increased slowly throughout the day, giving the competitors almost ideal conditions.

The final stages of the event enabled GBR2 to sail against ITA1 for the top honours, with GBR1 and ITA2 sailing for 3rd and 4th places, sailing a best of 3 race series for the final placings.

The GBR2 team of Lucy Hodges, John Long and Tony Lawton only needed 2 races to secure the winners’ trophy, with ITA2 producing the same margin over GBR1.