THE TALE OF TIRRENIA II: FROM NORTHERN EUROPE TO THE CARIBBEAN by Paolo Maccione
Tirrenia II, according the 1914 shipping register, was launched that year in England as Sapho II for Jean A. Valaoritis, who died within the year.
Her next owner was Alex C. Carapanos, the Greek minister in Rome, who in 1915 renamed her Dodoni. In 1924, the Italian knight, Cavaliere Guido Fiorentino, purchased her in the Pireo and renamed her Tirrenia II. President of the Neapolitan branch of the Italian Royal Yacht Club, Fiorentino created the Coppa Tirrenia, a prewar annual trophy presented to the yacht that completed the longest cruise in the Mediterranean. From 1975 until 1981 she was owned by Peter Ball, a retired Royal Navy clergyman who kept her in Monte Carlo, and then until 1989 by Peter Jespersen from Norway. Jespersen sailed her for more than 20,000 miles, chartering Tirrenia II in Europe, the Caribbean and finally Venezuela. Here, in 1991, the English broker David East sold her to Gianni Loffredo, for many years president of the Associazione Italiana Vele d’Epoca (AIVE). Loffredo shipped her back to the Mediterranean and in 1992 her restoration at the Pitacco, Luxich and Ferluga Yard, in Muggia, near Trieste began, under the expert eye of the famous yacht designer Carlo Sciarrelli, who considered Tirrenia II “a yacht equipped with a soul”. Re-launched on July 4th, 1993, Tirrenia II campaigned in innumerable classic yachting events, including Imperia and Argentario, right through 2009. In 2016 she was bought at an auction by two new owners from Lombardy and Piedmont who brought her to the Del Carlo yardin Viareggio where she underwent a complete refit under the direction of Enrico “Chicco” Zaccagni.
