Barche d'Epoca e Classiche: Yara, the lost Sciarrelli sails again

Yara is back. After leaving Italian waters more than 40 years ago, almost forgotten by enthusiasts, this splendid 15 metre wooden yacht is sailing once again in the northern Adriatic Sea. Launched in 1977 by the Crosato yard in the Veneto, she was designed by Carlo Sciarrelli, the Maestro of classic yacht design from Trieste. 

Yare, from the Adriatic to Turkey

Yara is a 15.25 metre masthead rigged sloop (www.yara-sciarrelli.it), built at the Piero Crosato yard in Jesolo in the province of Venice. After her launch in 1977, the following year Yara set course across Greece to Kusadasi, about 500 kilometres south of Istanbul on the west coast of Turkey, one of the county’s most important marinas. She was based there for thirty years, with the owner’s family coming down from Milan every year to go cruising for their summer vacations. Yara didn’t return to Italy until 2008, when she was hauled out in Monfalcone at the Cantiere Alto Adriatico to have her teak deck renewed. A change in plans imposed a longer stay than originally programmed, so Yara remained ashore, covered and in her cradle, until 2021. Here, after another series of jobs that included repainting the hull and bilges and reconditioning the hydraulic system, she returned to sea in September 2022. The solidity of Yara’s imposing laminated mahogany construction was confirmed during the refit - there was not a single sign of rot, nor did she leak. 

Maestro Carlo Sciarrelli's design n° 71

The gestation of Yara began in 1967 when businessman Adriano Trevisiol of Milan approached a young Carlo Sciarrelli with the embryo of an idea for a yacht. Sciarrelli, who died at the age of 72 in 2006, was a yacht designer from Trieste, destined to become one of the most valued and important interpreters of classic lines in modern wooden yachts. The Trevisiol family had no nautical inclinations and it seems that Adriano started off on his adventure without the knowledge of his relatives. Five years later we find Adriano beginning to sail with a Tortuga 27 that he had acquired and then kept in Chiavari and Portofino. These first sailing experiences were positive for the businessman who then began shuttle back and forth between Milan and Trieste to meet with Sciarrelli and debate, quite vivaciously it appears, on how the boat should look. In 1975 the project began to take it’s final form. Given design number 71, on February 26th, 1976, the contract for her construction was signed with Piero Crosato’s yard in Jesolo. Construction continued until the summer of 1977 when she was launched. The shipwright and designer for the Alto Adriatico Custom yard, Federico Lenardon (he was also the only student allowed at Sciarrelli’s drawing board), described this project as: “….an unconscious headlong flight undertaken by the Maestro to distance himself from the restrictions imposed by the IOR rules that were predominant at the time”.

Thirty Years in Turkey

Yara spent 1977 sailing. Her name, that of a tiger in a period film, was suggested by Trevisiol’s firstborn, Luca, when he was 12. The family accepted his idea, but before leaving for Turkey the sloop had to stop at the Marina Hannibal in Monfalcone for problems with her Ford Transit engine. It was the perfect moment for the owner’s two sons to attend the Tito Nordio Sailing School, the first sailing school in Italy run by the FIV (the Italian Federal Sailing association). What they learned there enabled them to properly sail and maintain the family yacht. For the next thirty years Yara cruised with her family in Turkey, without racing or taking long offshore passages.

Wooden Construction and Interiors

Yara’s hull is built of five laminates of diagonally-laid mahogany, with a teak over marine plywood deck and an aluminium two-spreader mast just over 20 metres tall. Notwithstanding an almost flush deck, her interiors are as spacious as those of a larger yacht, especially if we remember that her original project dates from 1967. Yara’s long and very low deckhouse, decreasing in height from the cockpit forward, gives standing room below decks. Starting aft from the full-beam stern cabin with it’s enclosed head, moving forward we find a spacious salon with the chart table to starboard and a twin settee opposite, becoming three bunks if necessary. Forward of the salon we have a second cabin with two bunks, the second head and the galley, with a classic queen-size V-berth in the forepeak. The plastic-free interiors feature sober and marine furnishings in satin-finished mahogany, with hand rails, lockers with Viennese cane doors for proper air circulation, and four through-deck prisms that together with seven hatches and the companionway provide ample natural light below. With 2,000 litres of fresh water capacity, Yara becomes a formidable means for family cruising, off-shore racing or chartering.

Deck and Rig

Everything is original. Nothing has been altered in the boat’s 45 years and all the original hardware and fittings are still functional and in perfect working order: from the Barbarossa winches and rigging to the mainsheet traveller, genoa tracks, and fairleads with the wooden cap-rail, closely spaced scuppers and the Tannoy air vents giving added functionality. A moderate deck camber coupled with very little sheer ensure that any water on-deck flows outboard, and not fore and aft. The sails, made by Zadro, include a new 55 square metre mainsail, a 76 square metre roller-furling genoa and a 198 square metre spinnaker. On the foredeck four wood saddles house the two spinnaker poles. The ample cockpit has a saddle seat for the wheel steering, and just above the two benches that cover the two lazarets are four flush-mounted lockers set in the seat backs, perfect for keeping smaller objects close at hand.

Yara, Tech - Specs

Name: Yara
Rig: Bermudan sloop
Year: 1977
Shipyard: Piero Crosato (Jesolo - Venezia - Italy)
Naval Architect: Carlo Sciarrelli (Trieste - Italy)
Material: Wood
LOA: 15,25 mt
LWL: 12,00 mt
Beam: 4,16 mt
Draft: 2,20 mt
Displacement: 14 tonn.
Sail surface: 131 mq
Engine: Yanmar 4JH5E 55 hp (39,6 KW)
Fuel: 500 lt
Water: 2000 lt
Grey water: 50 lt
Cabins: 3
Berths: 9
Toilet: 2