Andrea Fornaro... Another Italian, another serious client, another top gun in the Class40 Squadra Azzura, determined to add the MED MAX Occitanie - Saïdia Resorts to his list of achievements. At 47, the Tuscan-born sailor has nothing to be ashamed of. Brought up in Optimist, Vaurien, Snipe, 470 and Moth Europa, the athletic ragazzo quickly changed dimension: sailing with the best Italian sailing teams as helmsman and tactician, winning numerous championships (national, European and world) in everything from J24s, X35s, Comet45s, Farr40s, MiniMaxis, TP52s, Mumm30s and Melges. And even a bit of Olympism in Class Star in 2012. But it's in the Mini6.50 that this stalwart has moved on to a bigger playing field: the Atlantic. With two MiniTransats to his name, including one with a proto he built, he finished in the Top 5. Before going on to forge a solid reputation over thirteen years of experience in Class40.

Otherwise, when he's not on a racing yacht, preferably a fast one (like the FlyingNikka maxi-yacht, a 19-metre carbon racing car with foils, on which he's a crew member), the native of Ortebello on the Tuscan coast, who has a degree in political science from the Siena academy, glides. A keen funboarder, kiteboarder and wing sailor, all spectacular machines with which he has made it into the world's Top 10, he is just as comfortable with a foil under his feet as he is with his latest generation Class40. And not just any Class40, but his 'Incidence II': the sistership to another transalpine Class40, Alberto Riva's Acrobatica, designed by the fashionable young architect Gianluca Guelfi and built by the Sangiorgio Marine yard in Genoa! The battle promises to be fierce on the MED MAX Occitanie - Saïdia Resorts... An ocean race in the Mediterranean that Andrea sees as "It was a wonderful opportunity to return to my native waters after many years spent in the Atlantic. And for this, he has enlisted the help of a promising young Spaniard, Carlos Manera Pascual, a top-level Ministe (winner of the first leg of the MiniTransat 2023, 2nd overall) and just recently winner of the Niji40 2024 transatlantic race with Xavier Macaire. Young Catalan sailors are very much in vogue!