WHERE I HAVE SAILED
I learned the sea before I learned to drive. My family kept a boat in Pescara, and every summer of my childhood ended the same way — a dinghy in the harbour, then a sailing boat and a crossing to the Tremiti Islands, then further, to Croatia and the Ionian. By the time I skippered my first charter week in 2013 I had already spent fifteen summers as crew, bowman and co-skipper on those routes, and I knew the Adriatic the way you know a street you grew up on.

The Tyrrhenian came next and became home. For more than ten years my charters have started at Marina di Stabia, Napoli or Pozzuoli and gone out to the same handful of places I never tire of: Capri, Ischia and Procida on the doorstep; the Amalfi Coast and Cilento to the south; Ponza, Ventotene and Palmarola a day's sail to the north-west; and, when there is time, the Aeolian Islands and Stromboli at night. I have skippered forty-five weeks there and in Croatia — for private owners who wanted their boat sailed well, and for charter companies who needed a skipper their guests would remember.

For more than ten years my charters have started at Marina di Stabia, Napoli or Pozzuoli and gone out to the same handful of places I never tire of: Capri, Ischia and Procida on the doorstep; the Amalfi Coast and Cilento to the south; Ponza, Ventotene and Palmarola a day's sail to the north-west; and, when there is time, the Aeolian Islands and Stromboli at night. I have skippered forty-five weeks there and in Croatia — for private owners who wanted their boat sailed well, and for charter companies who needed a skipper their guests would remember.

I have run most of what a charter fleet has to offer: Beneteau, Jeanneau, Dufour and Bavaria monohulls from 38 to 54 feet, and catamarans — Lagoon 50, Bali 54, Fountaine Pajot Astréa 42. Since 2025 I am the resident skipper of a Dufour 500 GL; before that, five seasons on an Oceanis 523 that I came to know like my own hands.

But the boat is only half of it. I am a host as much as a skipper, and I take that part seriously. I love good food and I know where to find it — the trattoria up the hill in Ponza, the fish market in Procida, the right table on the Amalfi Coast — and I plan the week so that my guests see the places most people miss: the anchorage with the evening light, the cove you can only reach by water, the harbour worth an extra night. A week at sea should be remembered for the sailing and for the dinners.