“How did it all start? One time, almost by chance, I tried a Mini 6.5. I was blown away and told myself, I never want to land, to get off, to set ashore” […]
For me, it’s something magnetic, even though I wasn’t born near the sea, which I discovered and started to love only later in life. Sure, it’s a sport, a profession, a life choice, but it’s also so much more – it’s something much deeper. When you find yourself in the middle of the ocean on such a small boat as the ones I started with, it’s an incredible, magical feeling. […]
In the middle of the sea, I learned so much about myself, not just physically – when fighting against fatigue and lack of sleep – but also when I had to build a good relationship with myself. You spend many hours alone, away from everyone, and you truly discover who you are”.
(Sportweek, 2019)
The sea in his blood
A philosophy graduate, Alberto was born in Turin but has the sea in his DNA. His bond with sailing began early when, as a newborn, he cruised the Mediterranean on the family’s Camper & Nicholson. At eight, he started training on dinghies, an excellent training ground for mastering the fundamentals of sailing. For Alberto, however, sailing meant adventure and solo: at 19, he built a 2.5-metre dinghy and solo crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Competitions followed soon after, but the course of his career was already clear.
As a university student, he boarded Stormvogel, a historic and fast ULDB, winning the Panerai Trophy and, most notably, crossing the Atlantic for the first time, winning the ARC with a New Zealand crew.
His training continued through classical one-design “round-the-buoy” regattas; he was building his skills as an eclectic and capable sailor.
The great oceanic spaces
The course au large (offshore racing) became his goal, and at 27 Alberto was in Lorient for the start of the Mini Transat, a solo transatlantic race. The Minis are floating labs: all technological innovations for Atlantic racing stem from this class. These 6.5-metre boats can cross the ocean in 13 days. The Mini Transat is a legendary regatta, and Alberto earned his spot thanks to his 2012 Italian championship victory and the support from the Italian Yacht Club. In his debut race, he finished 5th in Guadeloupe with his Mini Onlinesim, after a tight competition. It was one of the best Italian results ever in this category.
Upon finishing the Mini Transat, Alberto was no longer just a sailor but a professional navigator. After that regatta, he entered a small circle of Italian athletes.
His irrepressible need to return to sea as soon as landed, to cross the ocean again, to go back to experiencing the sensations felt in the midst of the immense masses of water was born out of that race, along with a determination to commit himself to new projects with persistence and dedication.
In 2015, he dreamed of advancing to the Mini 6.5 prototype category: taking an existing boat and improving it with the aim of understanding her design secrets, while gaining experience with high-tech, composite materials. Collaborating with the University of Naval Engineering in La Spezia and a young design team, remarkable results were not long in coming. In 2015, he won the Italian championship with Promostudi La Spezia, while on an internation level he finished second in the Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables transatlantic race.
Between one Mini Transat and another, Alberto became a sought-after navigator for Mediterranean offshore classics. His training in meteorology with top French experts and his ocean experience made him an excellent strategist in the management of offshore regattas, leading to outstanding results, including the 2014 Italian Offshore Champion title in crew.
Flying on water
Every navigator aims to compete with the best in the top classes. In 2017, Alberto moved to the Class40 supported by Giovanni Soldini, who provided him with his former boat – Telecom Italia – aboard which he competed in the Transat Jacques Vabre, where he was forced to retire while in sixth position.
In 2019, Giovanni invited him aboard the Maserati Multi70, a trimaran with foils and one of the world’s fastest boats. As a member of the crew, together with the strongest and most experienced sailors around, Alberto participated in some long navigations, including the Okinawa to Hong Kong transfer, the tour of Europe, to test the trimaran’s new flying setup, and the pacific Transpac,in July 2019. Alberto experienced sailing at over 40 knots (70 km/h), flying over water.
The practice with foils, acquired on the Maserati, prepared him for the Figaro Beneteau 3, the first mass-produced one-design monohull with foils, a concentration of technology and innovation aboard which Alberto participated in the Solitaire, one of the most competitive offshore sailing championships, which once again placed Bona alongside the world’s best sailors in the category. The only Italian registered in the championship, in 2020 he finished 7th among first-year rookies and 16th overall.
In the 2021 season, with extensive experience under his belt, he led a team to the Italian Offshore Championship title and won the mixed double European championship aboard the Figaro 3.
In 2022, he launched a new project, with support from the IBSA Group.
Competing, planning, innovating, managing: all skills that Alberto had acquired in recent years and which would be crucial for his journey with the Class40 IBSA.
An innovative, technologically advanced and meticulously designed boat, with a tight-knit, experienced team to compete at the highest level.
Racing in the largest and most competitive class on the Route du Rhum – the Class40, with 55 participants in the category – was the first objective on the calendar: “a marvellous, formative, challenging, and incredibly demanding Routhe du Rhum 2022”, he will say as soon as he arrived in Guadeloupe in eighth place. “This race left me with a strong desire to keep going, to sail more oceans and seas”.
In 2023, the programme included six renowned and challenging ocean races, covering over 13,000 miles across the Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, and the Celtic Sea. Unlike the solo Route du Rhum, the races of the second season were crewed. With Spanish sailor Pablo Santurde del Arco, Alberto won the class championship title, securing first places in the RORC Caribbean 600 and in the Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables and third places in the Défi Atlantique and the Transat Jacques Vabre.
For the 2024 season of the project Sailing into the Future. Together, Alberto chose three intense and demanding regattas at new latitudes: the monumental transoceanic races Transat CIC (solo) and Transat Québec-Saint-Malo (crewed), finishing with the double-handed Normandy Channel Race.
