The best of Italian manufacturing sails around the world on “Alla grande”

Telling the story of a boat is telling the story of the man who will be sailing it, the yachtsman, the person who will be living in it. Designing a boat like this means tailoring it for a yachtsman, not unlike a suit. It must fit perfectly, be not too big and not too small. It must be comfortable and it must also reflect his sailing style. Designing “Alla grande”, a Class 40 that will be called to compete in an ocean race, was a challenge because building a user-friendly boat for Ambrogio Beccaria meant responding to the needs of a yachtsman who always knows exactly what he wants and what he is looking for when at sea.

“The boat could be described as 'Vitruvian-man-style', meaning that it was designed and built with the yachtsman – hence with Ambrogio – in mind. It was a task in itself, intended to respond to his specific needs and sailing style”, said Edoardo Bianchi, a 36-year-old engineer and shipbuilder, formerly in charge of the Luna Rossa foiling boats, as well as a former yachtsman in the Tornado class on the Italian Olympic team in the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games.

In his Sangiorgio Marine shipyard, Bianchi blended his skills with those of Gianluca Guelfi, a designer specialising in Class 40 boats, to build the best possible vessel for Beccaria's way of experiencing seagoing.

The starting point of the project was an abstract and positive ambition rather than an absolute certainty: "We knew that the design of this type of ocean-fairing boat implied aspects that had not yet been fully studied. We were lacking analysis and forecasting techniques. We wanted to identify what was missing from a Class 40 boat, what had not yet been studied, what remained to be discovered and investigated, and what new analysis and simulation techniques needed to be developed, taking one more step towards understanding the extremely complex fluid-dynamic system of a yacht in ocean waves”, Guelfi explained.

The need was for a boat that could cope with the challenges that Ambrogio Beccaria would face. He asked for one that could take part in a round-the-world race and boats of this type must have additional safety requirements. "The limit to performance in solo ocean races is human, so we needed to design a boat in which Ambrogio would be as protected as possible from the elements. This is is why we designed a very deep and almost completely enclosed cockpit in which all manoeuvres are linked," added Guelfi.

“Alla grande" has a rounded scow bow, raised out of the water, to seek the best passage over the waves. The sloping position of the mast achieves better performance and more control at high speeds. The sheltered cockpit mentioned by Guelfi has only four winches and tilting rudders that automatically release towards the stern in the event of a collision with a floating object.

Furthermore, the deck line is unusual compared to other boats. It has a double edge that has the dual purpose of stiffening the boat longitudinally and optimising the position of the centre of gravity respecting the tonnage limit imposed by Class 40 regulations.

One of the most interesting details of the boat is its environmental sustainability. Sailing is a sport with a strong ecological component by its very nature. Inevitably, on the open sea, nature surrounds the yachtsman from all sides and this has to be dealt with. "Sailing allows you to completely immerse yourself in the environment with little impact on it”, said Edoardo Bianchi. “Today, we are looking for solutions that can make ocean sailing even more sustainable, without detracting from performance, which is, of course, the focus of the competition.” Not by chance the Sangiorgio Marine shipyard has been working for some time on synergies with solar panels and composite raw material recycling, to optimise energy sources and the recovery and reuse of materials.

With “Alla grande”, Beccaria will take an all-Italian boat around the world, with a good dose of national pride. This is not a marginal detail for him. When he won the Mini-Transat in 2019, he was the first Italian to win a traditionally French competition, proving that he knew how to sail the Atlantic as well as, if not better than, the Bretons. This ambition is emulated in the design and construction of the boat. "Until now, the oceanic tradition has had almost only one point of reference in terms of construction and that was the Breton shipyards”, Bianchi concluded. “The challenge of 'Alla grande' is to make Italy stand out in the field of oceanic sailing as well. This is why I am very proud of Ambrogio's choice to build the boat in Italy (and in Sangiorgio Marine). It means having chosen not only Italian excellence in terms of design and style, as well as of construction, with the involvement of an Italian, or more specifically a Genoese, shipyard in the race towards the Ocean. Finally, we can bring the value of Italian manufacturing to the oceans of the world”.

Read more: I sail alone. Competition and the ocean according to Ambrogio Beccaria