Above: Cambria is behind Shamrock V – a rare sight at this regatta Left: Bau Bau, a 6-M restored six years ago by brothers Filippo and Giuseppe La Scala and kept on Lake Como


The pretty little harbour with its tall pastel pink and yellow houses and the dark green forested hillsides behind looks great with the plethora of metre boats – several with varnished hulls glowing in the early morning sun. It’s day two of the regatta and Shamrock’s skipper Nick Ryan has given me an easy job on the traveller. There are nine permanent crew on Shamrock V which is coded to work as a charter vessel. Most of them have been with ‘The Rock’ since he took over as skipper four years ago and they run the boat as a well-oiled team. We also have tactician Patrick Aucour on board, with an iPad in hand calling the timings and distances. Elizabeth and Michael, with five friends including me bring the complement up to


34 CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2011


17, but it’s a far cry from the crew of 30 or so these yachts used to need to race. With sail changes that can take up to five minutes to make – and with every available crew member carrying the huge sails up on deck, the hydraulic winches are necessary and the efficient mainsheet winch needs only one man, sitting with a toe on the deck switch, to haul in the huge boom. Hoisting the mainsail on Shamrock V seems in another league, even for big boats. With sail ties off, the halyard on the electric winch winds the 295kg Carbon Millenium main up, up into the Italian sky from endless folds held in lazyjacks on the boom. It feels like you could go and make tea and it would still be climbing up its 141ft (43m) luff track when you got back on deck.


Above: Prizes, unsurprisingly, include a Rolex watch, won by the 1986 aluminium hulled 12-M Kookaburra (which lost to Stars and Stripes in the 1987 America’s Cup)


CARLO BORLENGHI


EMILY HARRIS


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