Snipe Clinic in Anzio

Anzio, March 19-20, 2016. Report by Ivo Gattulli

The snipe Fleet Macondo, based on Lake Bracciano, last Fall decided to spend Winter in Anzio, to have the opportunity to sail in a great spot on the sea-shore, possibly avoiding the icy waters (during Winter) of Lake Bracciano.

That decision was quite unusual, indeed we preferred not to use the Winter not for racing in some small club-championship, but to spend some time on water in a place where is possible sail in full safety also during big swells, without any race-schedule constrain.

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Today I can say it’s been the right decision: we’ve been able to spend many great hours on the water, having great fun, sailing through some real massive swells (something like 25kt with 4m waves), fixing the kind of issues on the boats which usually we delay due to racing-schedules and, last but not least, it’s been perfect to help a quite young new crew to be ready for the coming sail-racing season.

So, approaching the end of Winter season, we pricked up a date to host a real training day, the kind with a coach on RIB, screaming at the snipes all around!

Due to some schedule over-lap in another snipe-spot, initially selected to host a snipe-clinic for the same date as our training-day, we’ve been happy to offer Anzio as location for that Clinic, and we started to work hard to set everything on time.

So thanks to the availability of our guesting Club, the RCCTR, during last week-end we hosted that Clinic, led by Gonzalo Crivello, and it’s been such a terrific time!!

I have to be honest, we’ve been incredibly lucky also about the weather: I couldn’t buy two better days if I had to!

So, after a great tuning section in the crowded yard of the Club, five snipes (other two boat kindly joined us for the Clinic) went out, Gonzalo on a RIB, and a glorious 10-12kt of W breeze in flat water, warm and sunny day all for us.. actually for us and for 54 Finns, collected in Anzio for the first of two selection-Nationals for the next Finn World Championship.

It’s been a tough day I’ve to say: many tests, massive up-winds, in a rising breeze: outstanding!

We came back on shore before the Finns for another set-up section, video supported de-briefing in the facility of the Club, and the unavoidable aperitif before the gorgeous dinner in the Club Restaurant, followed by a regenerating walk along the shore-side, till the Anzio Light-House, a shining-spot working from 2k years just.

The day after we had the properly forecasted SE. In Anzio SE could be a mess, I mean big swell and quite furious wind, but not this time. After few hours improving new things and some other fixing (for instance our messy spreaders.. after that our boat changed absolutely for the better), we went out in a gentle 6-8kt sunny breeze, absolutely perfect for an intense day spent in boat-handling a ultra-short races.

Gonzalo made an outstanding job following everyone, jumping in/out from the RIB to the snipes and viceversa, perfectly managing all the different issues.

Once again on-shore, we fixed everything (actually we’ll fix our broken poole next time), we loaded the two boats came for the Clinic on their road-trailer through the horde of Finns, and we had such a great time with another video-supported de-briefing, with Gonzalo gently pointing out how crappy we were.. but also some honest improvements!

The thing went quite over the sunset, leaving us with so many ideas to improve and test still: one of big things about the snipe is that you really never stop to learn and to try, and that’s the reason why we’ll try to host other Clinics as this one as we’ll be back in our summer-place, on the Lake Bracciano, hoping that many other crews from any Fleet will join us.

Well. I guess it’s the right time to thanks RCCTR for the exquisite hospitality, the AVB (our Club in Bracciano) for the borrowed stuff (including our snipe), all the crews involved in this Clinic and obviously Gonzalo for his hard and terrific job.