The Platu 25 World Championship, organized by the “Real Club de Regatas de Alicante”, finished after seven days in which the participants shared plenty of experiences and anecdotes. At the end, a lot of dreams have been realized thanks to the effort, perseverance and strength,and a lot of strength of will. There are no impossible dreams, neither challenges that cannot be overcome . We could share a lot of stories in the Real Club Village in Alicante and one of them is about the Italian boat “Aria”, supported by AIDO.

Until here, nothing unusual. But there is something hidden, something more important that the Francesco Bellomo’s guys wanted to get across us , something that goes beyond one simple sticker placed on the boat. We have to think that there is always somebody who needs us, and that with a small action we can save the life of a person.

“Aria” is an Italian boat from Tuscany supported by the “Associazione Italiana dei Donatori di Organi” (AIDO) - blood donors Italian association - headed by Francesco Bellomo who told us how he decided to gather up the Italian team. “The idea was born during a meeting organized by AIDO in which we met Federico Finozzi, an Italian yachtsman with his personal story having water as its principal element. Finozzi had a dream, to become the World Champion in swimming, but a disease forced him to suffer a liver transplant. Now he became the Champion he dreamt to be”.

“The sea is our passion“ underlines Bellomo. “We would like to share this message with everybody and what better occasion than a World Championship? Donation is an action of love for less lucky people. It‘s a way to make a bigger dream real, to live again and be better, sometimes practicing sport. .

The other story we had the pleasure to live in Alicante is about a very young yachtswoman, just 9 years old,with her 10th birthday soon. Her dream was to take part in a World Championship and - as we said before - dreams can be realized if you want. Marie Leperrier achieved it. She is in Alicante competing against the best yachtsmen of the world, proving that nothing is impossible in this life, and it was a lesson this little, but great, French girl gave us .

Smiling, blond and agile: our young protagonist Marie Leperrier is sailing with the French team “Black Flag” as a Spi trimmer. And she is only 9 years old ! “To be precise I’m nine, my birthday will be next Monday” remarked Marie who gained the sympathy from all the teams of the World Championship in Alicante.

The sailors all paid attention to her . admired her and looked after, until she became the mascot of the Platu 25 Worlds in Alicante. “Maria is very good” said Salomé Haffren, wife of the Black Flag’s owner. “This is her first important regatta and she proved to be able to do everything. She is engaged as a Spinnaker trimmer and she does it very well”. Last year Black Flag already had a little mascot during the Platu 25 World Championship in Punta Ala. She was Silvie but she couldn’t come this year to Alicante. We have a 5 years little boy we would like to compete in regatta with us.
We are waiting until he reaches 40 kilos in order to become an official member of our team”,

Concerning the position of Black Flag.... in Italy it concluded 31st...in Alicante it ws 28th in the provisional ranking list.
But they don‘t really care about the result.



PEP PORTAS
Spanish Press Office Platu 25
Móvil 657624420 prensaplatu25@telefonica.net www.platu25.net

MARIA PIA EBREO
Italian and International Press Office Platu 25 mariapiaebreo@gmail.com
www.platu25.it