The New York Times International - 30.08.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019 | 9

MAXI YACHT ROLEX CUP

After years of long hours building a bil-

lion-dollar business, the investor Steve

Cucchiaro of Boston sold his company

and returned to what makes him happy:

sailing. Once a member of the United

States Olympic Sailing Team, he now

finds a balance between running a new

business and sailing.

“I feel like I had the chance to com-

pete against the best in the world and

sail at the highest levels during the

1970s,” Cucchiaro, 67, said. “I stepped

away from sailing, but some time would

go by and I would start to miss it.” He

returned to serious sailing in 2014 and

will compete in the Maxi Yacht Rolex

Cup on Flow, his Nautor’s Swan 601. This

conversation has been edited and con-

densed.

When did you first start sailing?

My dad first exposed me to sailing. He

was an inner-city kid in Boston, and he

was in a program that introduced sailing

to kids that otherwise might not get that

opportunity. Years later, when I was

about 4, my dad was invited to join the

local sailing association. He remem-

bered how much he had loved sailing as

a kid, so we started racing as a family.

Finally, my dad suggested I take the

boat over and start racing with my

friends. I did that every Saturday on a

110 — a 24-foot keelboat. We would go

out there and usually get last place or

next to last, but it was a good learning

experience.

You went to M.I.T. and got a degree in

mathematics. Did that analytical thinking

help you as a sailor?

The sailing team was a big deal, and we

competed nationally. I became captain,

and we ranked No. 1 in the country for a

period.

One thing I learned at M.I.T. as a

mathematician was how to analyze

complex systems. It’s helped me in busi-

ness and sailing. The whole world is

made of complex systems. The sailboat

racing course is a complex system. The

investment markets are a complex sys-

tem. Sometimes things appear just to be

random — how the wind will shift or the

way the markets act — but it’s not. They

are all cause-and-effect relationships.

You can use mathematics to distinguish

between the randomness and true sig-

nals of cause and effect.

With sailing, I realized that there is

some probability and randomness, but

there are also patterns. By studying

weather, you can determine whether

this is a day that is going to shift back

and forth and oscillate within range, or

start in one direction and change to an-

other. Depending on the weather sys-

tems, you can increase your under-

standing of that and then change your

strategy.

You were also on the United States

Olympic sailing team. Tell me about that.

We qualified and won the gold medal at

the 1979 Pan-American Games. Before

the 1980 Olympics, President Carter

said he would boycott the Olympics over

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I felt

terrible for all the other athletes who

had been training all their lives. I had

been working part time. At that point, I

decided I would stop sailing and work

full time.

Now that you’re back sailing, do you like

the aspect of assembling a team?

When I put together a team of sailors, I

find people to fill goals. Different sailors

have different strengths. Some are good

at how they maneuver the boat, while

others are particularly good at how they

trim the sails or tune the rig to make it

fast. Then there are those strengths in

tactics, decisions and strategies. That’s

my strength. I try to stay a step or two

ahead of other boats and try to be con-

sistent.

I like to build a team that’s internally

very cooperative where people are re-

ally helping each other and not wasting

energy competing against one another,

but for the team as a whole to be super

competitive and use all its energies to be

the best it can be. Too much energy is

spent and wasted internally fighting.

What’s it like to be back in competitive

sailing?

The biggest difference is that there are

bigger boats, which means bigger

teams. That’s allowed me to reconnect

with great sailing friends who go way

back to the 1970s and 1980s. Instead of a

crew of two, it’s 10 or 15. It’s almost like a

grand reunion. What a wonderful thing

to be able to do after all these years.

The mathematics of sailing

Victorious

Stephen Cuc-

chiaro, right, in

1976, with Mi-

chael Loeb after

winning the gold

medal at the St.

Petersburg

Olympic Training

Regatta.

STEPHEN CUCCHIARO

The racecourse is another

complex system that

needs to be analyzed

BY JOHN CLARKE

Most sailing crews were sorted months

before the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in

Porto Cervo, Sardinia, starting Monday.

For many boats, owners and skippers

had already selected their tacticians,

trimmers, grinders and crew members

for the bow and midship, many of whom

were a mix of friends, family and profes-

sionals who had raced together for

years from an established network.

But each year, there are sailors —

freelancers with varying degrees of ex-

perience — who are not regular mem-

bers of a crew, seeking to compete on

one of the 54 towering sailboats for the

race.

Some travel light and alone, offering

their services on boats with strangers.

They race, sometimes being paid for

their time, sometimes not, and move on

to the next port or return home to their

regular day job. Others are looking to

gain experience or just get on a boat for

fun.

At the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, the

number seeking boats each year can be

up to a few dozen, and for many it can be

a challenge.

Each year the Yacht Club Costa Smer-

alda, which has hosted the race for 30

years, posts a page online connecting

skippers and crew members, along with

the list of entrants, rules and regula-

tions. For some sailors, it is their best

shot.

Marco Brandon Rossini, 19, a business

student from Milan who said he had

sailed since he was 6 years old, has been

seeking to crew on a boat at this race for

the last three years.

Rossini grew up sailing in his home-

town, Pesaro. Like many teenagers, he

has mostly sailed dinghies. He sailed

competitively on club teams and has

raced in national and world champi-

onships. He has instructed students in a

sailing school and cruised 40-footers

with his family in the Mediterranean,

exploring the Italian archipelagos. Last

summer, Rossini said, he made his first

ocean crossing on a 50-footer, sailing to

San Francisco from the Hawaiian island

of Oahu.

He had experience, but he still could

not get a spot.

“You have those huge Maxis with

powerful backers that don’t take anyone

on unless they’re professionals with

years of experience,” Rossini said. “You

more likely to get a shot with one of the

smaller boats. Nobody gives credit to a

kid just 19 who’s passionate for sailing,

but without much experience.”

This year, he finally got a chance to

join Arara, a 60-foot racer-cruiser called

a Black Pepper Code 2 out of the Cay-

man Islands.

“I was so excited,” he said. Then

Arara’s bowsprit broke, and she was laid

up with repairs in Newport, R.I., unable

to make the race in Sardinia.

“I had planned to race on that boat,

and I was so happy,” Rossini said. “But

then it didn’t work out.”

He said he was still happy to make the

connection, which is what many crews

are built on. “I got a toe in the door,” he

said.

“Now, I need to slowly build on that.

I’ll get to race with them this winter.”

“Marco seemed like a good kid,” said

Tim Gollin, the skipper of Arara. “My ex-

perience is that it’s better to sail with

people who are enthusiasts, honest

about their experience and are ready to

do anything. We’ll be there next spring,

and I hope I’ll be able to connect with

Marco and get him on board.”

Francesco Salmoiraghi, 54, an archi-

tect from Florence, Italy, has sailed

Maxi and Swan boats, and competed in

several prestigious events in the Medi-

terranean. Salmoiraghi said he also reg-

ularly raced on three boats: a Swan 60,

an X-35 and a Landmark 43.

The Maxi Yacht race has been at the

top of his bucket list for years. “It’s a fab-

ulous regatta field with dreamy views

and a constant wind,” Salmoiraghi said.

“They are boats that give fabulous sen-

sations of speed and power. Of course

they are very strenuous boats to maneu-

ver, especially in the bow or grinder

roles. The Maxi Yacht combines all

these fabulous experiences in a single

regatta.”

Yet entrance to the race remains elu-

sive, he said.

“It’s very difficult to find boarding on

these large boats where the shipowners

rely almost exclusively on professional

crews,” Salmoiraghi said. “For amateur

sailors like me, it is very difficult if not

impossible to participate despite my

knowledge gained over the years. I hope

this year is the right time.

“It is very difficult to find boardings if

you do not have a good network of

knowledge or you are not a profes-

sional,” he said. “Finding boarding is al-

ways a matter of knowledge and time to

devote to sailing. I don’t really get vaca-

tions.”

These days, with a family and a full-

time job, Salmoiraghi can no longer drop

everything, grab a bag and run off to

race.

“It’s an exciting life, and a good life if

you are young and you have time,” he

said. “When I was in college I did a lot of

regattas, I had fun and I had food and

lodging. Then comes work, family and

time is less and less.”

Salmoiraghi still does get to occasion-

ally experience what it’s like to be the

new guy on a competitive boat. At his

last Rolex Giraglia regatta, where he

jumped on board a Swan 60 at the last

minute, he did not know any of the crew

members. But intense moments shared

in tight confines make for strong bonds.

“There were 16 of us. By the end of the

regatta, after three days, we were all part

of one crew,” he said.

Rome Kirby, who has raced Maxis and

competed in the Volvo Ocean Race and

the America’s Cup, is not the kind of sail-

or who waits at the docks looking for a

spot. At 30, he is committed to a few

boats each year, and his schedule is

booked. But he does know of the need for

crew members in some races.

“You definitely see that on smaller

boats and crews, maybe people were on

the dock and a boat may need someone

to do the mast, pull up the halyard or

whatever,” Kirby said. “There’s a need,

for sure.”

However, he said, you do not see that

as much in the top levels of pro sailing.

“You don’t see many private owners

putting out ads looking for crew,” he said.

“Guys like Hap Fauth, who owns Bella

Mente and has the 2021 America’s Cup

team — a team full of guys that pretty

much have already won the America’s

Cup before — it’s rare that you get a ran-

dom jumping in. Mainly, just when some-

one gets hurt.”

Still, sailors like Salmoiraghi are not

ready to give up on their dream race. He

is still looking for a spot at this year’s

Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup.

“I haven’t found anything yet,” he said.

“I think I’ll just go to Porto Cervo any-

way. Maybe I’ll find a boat at the docks.”

Sailors looking to lend a hand

Though many boats have

their crews, experienced

racers hope to land a spot

BY JOHN CLARKE

Ready to go

Marco Brandon

Rossini, far left, has

tried to join a crew

for the Maxi Yacht

Rolex Cup for three

years. Francesco

Salmoiraghi, left in

ballcap, is an archi-

tect who has sailed

Maxi and Swan

boats.

MARCO BRANDON ROSSINI

FRANCESCO SALMOIRAGHI

Some freelance sailors race, then

move on or return home. Others

are looking to gain experience or

get on a boat for fun.

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