Sailing Umavideo
Ending a Legendary Debate | Step 355
21 July 2023 · 21 min · 109K views · Genova
What this video covers
Dan travels to Genoa, Italy, during the Ocean Race grand finale to settle a debate that has followed the Sailing Uma crew since they bought their boat ten years ago: what is the correct name — and pronunciation — of the overlapping headsail.1:11
Interviewing sailors, race crew, and locals throughout the week, Dan collects conflicting answers. Sailors aboard a Volvo 70 racing under Austrian colors explain their inventory runs from a masthead code zero and fractional code zero to jib numbers one through three and a storm jib — no genoa, because a genoa by definition overlaps the forestay and their sails do not. A sailor on a 100%-recyclable-thermoplastic monohull calls the headsail simply a jib.4:35 Others explain the gennaker as a 1926 Olympic invention by Juan Salern's grandfather's brother, a hybrid between a spinnaker and foresail that won gold in Genoa and took the city's name.5:44 Dan also races aboard Telefonica Blue, a Volvo 70 that completed the Ocean Race in 2008–09 and 2011–12, in a near-windless Genoa Legends Race that ends with the boat abandoning the course.9:03 The mayor of Genoa delivers the final verdict: the overlapping headsail was invented in the city roughly 100 years ago and is correctly called the genoa.20:17
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