In Imperia, KZ-5 secured the 12 Metre World Championship in the Grand Prix division with two races to spare. For her owner, Andrea “Andy” Bianchedi, it was the culmination of a project that began with a photograph spotted in a Newport restaurant and grew around a group of sailors with whom he shares both racing and friendship. He welcomes us aboard his Red Dragon, moored alongside the 12 Metre. The 52-metre sailing superyacht, designed by Ed Dubois and launched by Alloy Yachts in 2008, is the yacht on which he is preparing to set off around the world. Two very different boats, united by the same approach to sailing: choosing lines that move him, sailing with people whose company he enjoys, and letting results follow from the work they do together.

Pressmare: Mr Bianchedi, you introduced yourself as Andy. May we call you that?

Andy Bianchedi: “Everyone has called me Andy since I was a boy. My mother was Dutch, and my upbringing had a strong Anglo-Saxon influence. She was the one who started calling me Andy, and it stuck: even my business cards say Andy.”

Let’s start with KZ-5: you won the World Championship with two races to spare. Did you expect that?

“No, not at all. The guys didn’t expect it either. We knew we were working well, but we were still finding our feet and trying to understand where we stood against the others. The boat is very fast and we achieved a result that makes me incredibly happy. It’s a project that began three years ago and has evolved step by step: to win the World Championship at our first attempt is about as good as it gets.”

How did this story begin?

“I was looking for a classic racing yacht, because I had had such a great time with the 6 Metre Dan. I was in Newport for the New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, racing the IC37 one-designs with the Yacht Club Italiano team (I’m also a member of the New York Yacht Club, he adds – Ed.). One evening I was having dinner at the Clarke Cooke House – a place very popular with sailors – when I turned around and saw a photograph of KZ-5 with the words ‘World Champion 2019’. I asked whether she might be for sale. We made some enquiries and discovered she was right there in a shed. So we went to see her.”

Was that photograph the decisive moment?

“Yes, it was love at first sight; there was nothing calculated about it. I had also seen French Kiss in Saint-Tropez and liked her very much. People had explained to me that 12 Metres are complex boats, but great fun, and that there was an active class scene both in Europe and the United States. I buy boats when I like their lines: they have to look beautiful on the water.”

Did the fact that KZ-5 was built in fibreglass influence your decision?

“I was intrigued by the fact that she was one of the boats that marked the transition from aluminium to fibreglass, but what really made me decide was that photograph at the Clarke Cooke House in Newport.”

From buying her to the World Championship, how did you prepare the boat?

“We brought her to Italy and carried out some work in Genoa at Edo Bianchi’s Sangiorgio Marine. Then the new sails from Guido Cavalazzi arrived and we went to Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez to see where we stood. Dan was there too, so we had two boats. When the opportunity came up to race the World Championship in Imperia, we said: let’s do it, knowing we would be up against strong opposition, starting with Kookaburra II. We certainly never expected to win with two races to spare.”

There’s a group aboard that you’ve known for a long time. How important is that relationship?

“If I deserve any credit, it is for having managed to build a great group, with a relaxed atmosphere on the boat and, even more importantly, ashore. They are all friends, people I have sailed with a lot, on the ClubSwan 50 and the Swan 98 Drifter Cube, which we raced in the Giraglia and the St. Barths Bucket. I have dinner with them, spend time with them, enjoy myself with them. We see each other out of season too; I organise occasions for us to get together and almost everyone comes. It is a way of staying connected that goes well beyond racing.”

How do you build a crew like that?

“It matters a lot to me that the group is close-knit and that people are happy. Sailing is my leisure time: I don’t get angry if the result isn’t there; the experience matters more to me. If there is a chance to go for it, we do, but winning has never been my main aim. That doesn’t mean we don’t do things properly. It means giving them the time they need, without unnecessary tension and without constantly looking for someone to blame.”

Yet the results have come…

“And it is an incredible feeling. First of all, I’m delighted for the guys. I enjoy taking part; I like this world. As I always say, it’s better to be here than in the office. Winning is the icing on the cake. In sailing there is a basic level you have to have, but then preparation, luck and sometimes bad luck all play a part. You can have a boat full of champions, but if they don’t get along, if the right atmosphere isn’t there, the boat won’t perform. I’m happy that our way of doing things led to this result.”

Your passion for sailing had a long break. How did you find your way back to it?

“As a boy I sailed Optimists and then Flying Juniors. I stopped at eighteen and for a very long time I didn’t set foot on a boat. One day, leafing through a magazine, I saw the ClubSwan 50, created to mark Swan’s 50th anniversary. I knew Leonardo Ferragamo, though not as well then as I do now, and went to see him in Florence. I saw the boat and signed on the spot. She was delivered about a year and a half later and we started racing. I was also class president for quite a long time. That was where the whole passion started again.”

Coming from dinghies, how did you prepare for that return?

“When I ordered the CS50, I told myself I needed to get used to wheel steering: I had only ever sailed dinghies. At Yacht Club Italiano they suggested I call Pietro D’Alì. I asked him if we could go out a couple of days during the week, even in winter. I would charter a First 40.7 and go sailing with Pietro and two other people. He never wanted to come back in: ‘Let’s stay out a little longer…’. After four hours I was exhausted! Pietro has been with me right from the beginning of this journey.”

Then came the 6 Metre. What drew you to it?

“Giorgio Passarella had found a boat sitting in a yard. We bought her, had her restored by Lavazza on Lake Maggiore and started racing, particularly at Les Voiles d’Antibes, where we won three times. We had a lot of fun, again without expecting those results. The boat is incredibly fast and on the 6 Metre I sail as part of the crew.”

Doing what?

“I handle the runners. I don’t like helming because I also want to watch the race. I’m down there working the runners and, when they don’t need me, I occasionally pop my head up to see what’s happening.”

On KZ-5, by contrast, you have so far preferred to leave the crew to it. Do you plan to race aboard?

“Yes, I think I will, always in my favourite role: aft, on the runners, not at the helm. So far I haven’t felt ready. On a 12 Metre it’s very hard physical work; you have to pull hard. But I can do it – it’s still better than grinding.”

Among the sailors you’ve sailed with, who do you look up to most?

“I don’t have the depth of sailing background to name some distant hero, perhaps someone I’ve never met. What matters to me are the people I’ve actually sailed with. Mauro Pelaschier, for example: a superb sailor and a great person. Then Tiziano Nava, whom I sail with regularly, and Flavio Favini, the tactician on KZ-5. And Pietro D’Alì: as well as being a sailor, he is a first-rate seaman, one of those people I would want beside me if I ever found myself in difficult conditions.”

For Nava, returning to a 12 Metre also carried a special significance…

“When I asked him to go and look at KZ-5 in Newport, he became emotional. He immediately said he would go. To find himself back on a 12 Metre after the Azzurra experience forty years earlier meant something very special to him.”

What do you look for in classic yachts?

“The lines. There are some very beautiful modern yachts, but in general I don’t like it when good lines are sacrificed to create more space. The way I see it, if you want more space, you need a longer boat; otherwise it risks becoming ungainly. I have always loved slim, elegant classic yachts. I also love the wooden yachts of the 1920s and 1930s. Every now and then people have to stop me.”

Is there a boat you dream of?

“A J Class. To me, it is the most beautiful yacht in the world. But it is a major commitment, both financially and in terms of time. And I like to keep sailing with the same people, all of whom are a certain age. I don’t know; perhaps it will remain a dream.”

Meanwhile, we are aboard Red Dragon, a 52-metre yacht with a very concrete programme: a round-the-world voyage.

“I bought her about two years ago with precisely that objective. We’ll leave in November and plan to transit the Panama Canal in March 2027. Then I’ll go to the Galápagos. I won’t be able to stay aboard all the time: I’ll get off and rejoin the boat later. We want to make the voyage at an unhurried pace and, when I’m not aboard, we have also planned a charter programme.”

Does the mast height allow her to transit the Panama Canal?

“Yes, we have a metre and a half of clearance. It isn’t much, but the boat has been through before, so we know she can do it.”

Who works with you on managing these programmes?

“Giorgio Passarella has been working with me for years through his Super Yacht Solutions in Monaco. Together we have built all these projects: from the ClubSwan 50 to the 6 Metre, then the 12 Metre we found in Newport and the Red Dragon programme. It is a path we have developed together.”

When you were looking for Red Dragon, did you want an existing yacht or had you also considered a new build?

“I had considered a new build. I’m very close to Nautor Swan and had started developing the 128: hull number one was meant to be mine. Then I realised I wanted an even more comfortable yacht for the kind of sailing I had in mind. I also began to question the choice of carbon and of a yacht halfway between cruising and racing. They are beautiful boats, but I use mine for holidays and I was looking for something different, including in the way she behaves upwind.”

Had you considered aluminium as well?

“Yes. Massimo Perotti and I had discussed a new aluminium build. But beyond the cost, there was the question of time. A new yacht can take three or four years to build, and then there is the commissioning and fine-tuning: these are complex pieces of engineering. I wanted to set off sooner than four or five years down the line. Red Dragon was ready, I liked her lines and I had always admired the yachts built by Alloy Yachts. I didn’t feel like being the first owner of a completely new design.”

Where does the name Drifter, which you’ve used for your boats, come from?

“From my mother. My holding companies are called Drifter too. She called her boat Drifter, inspired by the song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and by the image of two drifting souls, without a destination, in the positive sense of the expression. In the end, that comes from her as well.”

What has returning to sailing given you?

“It is a rediscovered passion; it has not been with me continuously throughout my life. I discovered a world full of passionate, likeable people. It is hard to find an unpleasant sailor.”

Giuliano Luzzatto