Ready to fly: the search of balance

“Foil is a wing underneath the boat – suggests Ruggero Tita, Olympic gold medalist with Caterina Banti in Nacra 17 class  – and it allows you to rise from the water”.

That’s what sailing is all about: rising from the water, flying above it graciously. We are used to considering water as a symbol of stillness, but in fact it’s hard as steel. And its splashes, while sailing, really hurt. Water is thus an element that normally breaks sailors. From which they try to keep away, avoiding the hull to be more submerged than necessary. “In order to do that,” explains Caterina, “we need wind, which means freedom, fear, and firmness.”

Ruggero Tita, born in 1992 in Rovereto, Northern Italy, is the analytical mind, much more focused on engineering and control. Caterina Banti, born in Rome in 1987, has a philosophical kind of soul, guided by a humanistic approach. “I’m quite analytical too,” points out Caterina, “although for me control is not a lifestyle but mainly a method. A method I gained during my years as a student, ‘cause I really loved studying and succeeding at school and university.” She graduated very early, gaining the opportunity to access a PhD at the same time she first discovered sailing – “my brother needed a bowman and then I found out that I was good at it, having fun too.” She decided immediately to put her university career aside – “time was by my side indeed, I was very young and believed I could continue studying later on” – and focused on sailing, meeting Ruggero soon after.
“In contrast, I started at a very young age,” he says, “moved by the most adrenaline-filled side of this sport. I also liked the stubbornness you need to put into practice what you learn, for instance in the way you need to take care of the boat.
For this reason, I chose to graduate in engineering”.

Trusting each other is the focal point in sailing: the bowman has to trust the helmsman and vice versa. A synergic work towards a common goal, which is not just victory, but most of all to keep on sailing, finding the perfect balance through body movements. It means nevertheless, being extremely light and leading the boat through the same lightness, flying over water in a hiss.

Plus, a strict connection exists between this kind of movement and one athlete’s life.

“It’s a privilege,” says Caterina. “The luck of doing what you love, dedicating your existence to what you love. Sacrifices need to be understood as choices and compromises, not in a negative way. There is a continuous search for the right balance, in daily life and on the water. So, the question is always the same: when and by how much to exceed the limit?”

Both “main” because without one of the two you can’t fly. And we saw how sailing – and foiling in particular – is all about flying: lifting yourself up over things, while observing the world from a privileged perspective.

That privileged perspective, in 2024, will be for Ruggero and Caterina the Olympic Games in Paris.

And they are ready to fly and foil, finding – as Jonathan Livingston Seagull suggested – the “perfect speed of being there”.