The regattas of the 2024 season commented by Alberto Bona

After filing away the 2023 season – which reached its peak with the victory of the Class40 Championship – Alberto Bona and the Class40 IBSA are ready to face the third year of the project Sailing into the Future. Together.

The 2024 calendar involves three very challenging events, including twoocean crossings for a total of over 6,000 miles in just four months, and at latitudes much further north compared to those reached in the previous season: “Sailing routes this far north”, commented Bona,“will certainly be a great challenge: we will constantly have to find the best compromise, trying to stay in the southernmost part of the northern zone. Most of the time the wind will be very strong, a demanding condition that requires constant concentration, but for which our boat is perfectly suited”.

The season opens on April 28 with the TransatCIC from Lorient (France) to New York, a solo regatta that Alberto defines legendary: “This Transat has been won by the big names in ocean sailing, and I’m excited at the idea of ​​facing it too. It’s a difficult route in the North Atlantic and in the first months of the season, a very exacting period, due to wind, sea and current conditions. On paper, it’s the most difficult regatta I have ever done. I dreamed of this race while reading the stories of the great navigators and I didn’t think that one day I would have the chance to do it myself… especially with a Class40!”.

After their first transoceanic race, the Class40 IBSA and her skipper will return to Europe with a second and equally legendary challenge: the Transat Quebec Saint-Malo. Starting on June 30 from Quebec City (Canada) and arriving in Saint-Malo (France) after about two weeks, this transat – which requires a crew of three – is one of the few Atlantic regattas sailed “in reverse”, that is, from West to East.

At the end of the season, Bona will participate in the Normandy Channel Race, a 1,000 mile regatta with start and finish in Caen, Normandy (France) in which he had already participated in 2023.“It’s a very nice route”,remarked Alberto, “with spectacular landscapes by which, however, we must not be distracted: this regatta requires plenty of tactics and strategy, as well as a great knowledge of currents and tides”.

IBSA’s crew will not, therefore, be the same throughout the year: Alberto will start the season solo, just like in the Route du Rhum 2022; he will then continue with a crew of three, and will end the season in double: “I amhappy to go back to solo sailing after more than a year as part of a crew. It has always been said that a double-handed race is actually a part-time solo race, but I think it will be interesting to see how my approach to solo sailing has evolved, first and foremost for myself”, he concluded.