Classic Boat – September 2019

Tell Tales

XII PUIG VELA CLASSICA

The 12-M duel that took 90 years to stage

The 12th Puig Vela Clàssica hosted by Real Club Náutico de Barcelona

last month featured an intriguing head-to-head as two pre-war Italian

12m yachts – built ostensibly as period rivals – met on a race course for

the very first time.

La Spina was the first Italian yacht built under the International 12-M

Class Rule. She was built for the Marquis Franco Spinola by Cantieri

Baglietto in Genoa and launched in 1929. Her rival at Puig Vela Clàssica

was Emilia, Italy’s second 12m yacht, and constructed by Baglietto’s

local rival Cantieri Costaguta. Emilia was commissioned by a friend of

the marquis – Giovanni Agnelli of Fiat fame – as a gift for his son-in-law

Carlo Nasi, and all the evidence points to the two yachts being

imagined as racing rivals.

But Carlo was despatched to the US on Agnelli family business

before Emilia was completed, and the yacht was sold to Attilio

Bruzzone who converted her to a Bermudan-style staysail schooner

before her launch in 1930 – taking her outside the 12m class rule. La

Spina was converted to ketch rig in 1930 too, and her original fit out

suggests the Marquis was a cruising man at heart. It’s noticeable from

the cockpit, where La Spina’s small ship’s wheel has a more grandiose

feel than Emilia’s long slender tiller, but the real difference is down

below. La Spina has an attractive saloon, luxuriously trimmed with

upholstery that matched the furnishings in the marquis’s palazzo,

owner and guest cabins, plus a well-equipped period galley and heads.

It wasn’t until a refit and restoration in 2002 that the decision was

taken to re-rig Emilia and make her into the 12m racer as originally

planned, while La Spina has only recently been converted back to 12m

class spec during a period-correct restoration by her latest owner.

And the racing? La Spina’s crew is still learning her period-correct

ropes, while Emilia has modern spars and rig and was sailed by a crew

who know her well. The results at the XII Puig Vela Clàssica went

accordingly, but a silverware-hungry owner suggests it’s by no means

the end of La Spina's racing story.

NICO MARTENNEZ

JO

RG

E^ A

ND

RE

U

Top: The crews of La Spina

(right) and Emilia face off

before their Puig Vela

Clàssica showdown. Below:

Emilia with La Spina to

windward