Paolo Rizzi

Born on the 5th of october 1959 in Trieste, Italy, Paolo Rizzi starts sailing on board international 5.5 class with his parents since the early 60's and by the age of 10 he had visited most parts of the coast of former Yugoslavia.

Throughout his school days, he sailed Cadet, Flying Junior, Optimist, 470 classes as well as taking part in a significant number of sailing races, mainly on the family sailing boat "Vento Fresco", a 38' New Optimist designed by Dick Carter.

During his teens Paolo began mixing his passion and skill for sailing with an increasing interest in travel.

At various times he has worked as an accountant, a warehouseman, an installer of burglar alarms, a painter, a carpenter, a theatre stagehand, a carpet seller, an interior designer, a caterer, a film maker, a bartender and as a chef.

Paolo is an accomplished chef. Beyond his natural love for Italian food he has, at various times, mastered cuisines from diverse countries. Seafood dishes are his galley flagship.

A lifetime at sea including multiple ocean crossings, thousands of miles, sailed on most of the Planet Seas mixed with the eager desire of discovery keeps molding Paolo's polyhedric carachter.



Paolo is fluent in Italian, English, Spanish and French.

He lives in Trieste with his wife Elena, a former World Champion sailor on 420s and their three sons.

1983-1984
- Trieste to Melbourne (via Panama)
Three crew on board s/v "Sabaloo", a 15 m. Laurent Giles sloop

1985
- Portofino-New York Race
Double handed by Paolo and his mother on s/v "Vento Fresco"

- New York to Trieste

1987
- Las Palmas to Barbados Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
on s/v "Vento Fresco"

1988
- Tortola (B.V.I.) to Trieste
No Stop Double handed (52 days) on s/v "Vento Fresco"

- Cadiz to Santo Domingo Ruta de Descubrimiento Race
On 80' maxi yacht "Gatorade"

1989
- Saint Thomas (U.S.V.I.) to Lavagna

- Southampton to Punta del Este
first leg Whithbread Round the World Race

On s/v "Gatorade"

1990
- Rome to Barbados

On board s/v "Casta Diva" Hallberg-Rassy 42'

1991
- Anguilla to Rome
Double handed on s/v "Casta Diva"

1992
- Trieste to Barbados
on board s/v "Vento Fresco"

1993
- Tortola to Aberdeen
Double handed

Rescued in mid Atlantic (39°N-039°W) after 7 days on raft by cargo ship "Alidon" after sinking of s/v "Vento Fresco" in stormy weather.

1995
- St. Maarteen to Portofino
on board s/v "Seilan II" Swan 57'

1999
- Martinica to Villefranche-sur-Mer
on board s/v "Farman" Swan 46'

2000
- Antigua to Cadiz
on board s/v "Ulysses" Swan 60'

2002
- Tenerife to St. Maarteen
on board s/v "Annarobi" 20 m. Schooner by Giorgetti e Magrini

2003
- St. Maarten to Vilamoura
on board s/v "Annarobi"

Images of my childhood chasing each other along the line of an horizon that i’m able to perceive only by fetches. Fragments of memories that are interwoven without being able to focus my attention on one in particular. Now it is the turn of Marianna. I see her even more incredibly beautiful than at any time in her magical flourish adolescence. She calls me but I can not reach her, and, in the meanwhile, her face, white as nacre, goes out of focus and turn into white foam. Now the image is real. There are thousands of small fish, chased by ferocious predators, struggling towards an improbable salvation. From the purple haze of the sunset, as they were taking off from the small cumulus right above, here are the gannets to make single bite victims, penetrating the liquid element fast as missiles. This noise of the water is becoming more and more deafening.

This must be the entrance of Eden reserved to us, Argonauts of the oceans. Soon I will prey. I see the faces of my closest friends among those fleeing fish and their eyes express terror.
A feeling of well-being, nevertheless pervades my body. For the first time I feel a step from IT. The InfiniTe knows no affections, memories nor feelings. The InfiniTe begins when everything ends. IT’s the end of the trip. The final destination. The passage will be as sweet as the scent of these interminable moments. I am sure of it.
And perhaps it’s this certainty itself to give me peacefullness.
Now I’m in the Howard Johnson’s of Times Square with Bill and I focalize my eyes on a giant billboards outside, on the square, and I find myself hopping over the junks in Ma Nam Wat, then I am in a pub in Saint Kilda in the middle of a bunch of drunken Australians. As looking thru a maddened kaleidoscope I resee debris of images: the house in South Kensington, Sam Lords Castle of Barbados, the beach of Punta del Este, the green mountains of Hanavave with its streams of hot water and the rainbows, the motel in Pompano Beach; but the images keep flowing faster and faster and gradually I’m unable to focalize them. I find myself in swaddling clothes on the sand, under the gaze of the great Sphinx in Gizah. I’m trying to scream but no sound radiating.
Someone took me in her womb. A young woman. My mother after giving birth.
The dreams blear and the nightmare resume shape. I have a great desire to vomit dreams and memories. The raft continues to lose pressure and its waterline is increasingly at risk. The ocean seems to quiete down slowly, the tide seems to return long friend.
It’s the 17th of May 1993, almost six days after the sinking of the "Vento Fresco II", rescuers are no longer on our tracks, I’m alone with Andrea at approximately 700 miles west of Flores in the Azores. Now there is no room for the InfinTe. I have to take my friend home back to his beloved ones. And I must finish living my life. I’m 33 years old as John Belushi when he felt asleep for the last time in that damned Bungalow # 3 at Chateau Marmont.
I do not want to sleep any more. I’m unmindfully dandling a twice copper wire that falls more or less vertically from my lifejacket...

Paolo Rizzi 2006