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Settimana delle Bocche, Porto Cervo welcomes back one of its historic regattas

The Costa Smeralda and La Maddalena Archipelago will welcome the historic Settimana delle Bocche back in 2027 under the ORC rating system

The Settimana delle Bocche returns to Porto Cervo from 26 April to 1 May 2027, during the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s 60th anniversary year

The Settimana delle Bocche will return to the waters of Porto Cervo from 26 April to 1 May 2027. This will be more than another event on the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda calendar: the regatta’s return will coincide with the 60th anniversary of the YCCS and revive an event closely connected with the origins of the Club’s international sporting history.

It was the Settimana delle Bocche that launched the Club’s international sailing activity in 1972. Fifty-five years later, yachts and crews will once again compete on one of the Mediterranean’s most distinctive racecourses, between the Costa Smeralda and the La Maddalena Archipelago.

A story that began in 1972

The original idea was ambitious: to create a week of racing in Sardinia inspired by the format of Cowes Week and bring some of the most representative yachts and sailors of the Mediterranean scene to Porto Cervo.

The inaugural edition attracted names that have become part of Italian and international sailing history. They included Giorgio Falck aboard Guia, Admiral Agostino Straulino aboard Kerkyra, Gian Marco Moratti and Nicolò Donà dalle Rose aboard Viva, Serena Zaffagni aboard Mabelle, Italo Monzino aboard Mait II, and American sailor Bill Ficker at the helm of Charisma.

That event helped establish, from the very beginning, the relationship between Porto Cervo, the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda and international yacht racing.

Returning in the YCCS 60th anniversary year

The choice of 2027 is significant. As the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda celebrates sixty years since its foundation, bringing the Settimana delle Bocche back to the calendar means revisiting one of the events that helped shape the Club’s sporting identity.

YCCS Commodore Andrea Recordati has emphasised this connection between the past and the future. The regatta holds a special place in the history of the Club, while its return is intended both to celebrate that heritage and to offer owners, sailors and enthusiasts a renewed international event.

The straits and La Maddalena return to centre stage

Few areas of the Mediterranean have such a distinctive sailing identity. Wind, passages between the islands, changes in coastline and the channels of the La Maddalena Archipelago create a racecourse where tactics and an understanding of local conditions can play a decisive role.

This is the setting that the Settimana delle Bocche will rediscover in 2027. The announced format includes both windward-leeward races and a long coastal race through the waters of the Costa Smeralda and the La Maddalena Archipelago.

The combination will alternate the precision required for technical racing with a course where navigation, wind interpretation and the geography of the coastline become part of the challenge.

ORC ratings for the 2027 edition

The new edition will be raced under the ORC rating system. Yachts meeting the eligibility requirements set out in the Preliminary Notice of Race will be able to participate.

The preliminary document is expected to be published on the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda website from October and will provide further details on the requirements for entry.

The return of the Settimana delle Bocche is therefore not intended as a purely commemorative occasion. The objective is to bring genuine competition back to the water, adapting a regatta created more than half a century ago to contemporary offshore racing.

Porto Cervo looks to its history to chart a new course

Over six decades, Porto Cervo has become one of the international sailing world’s established venues, welcoming one-design classes, maxi yachts, superyachts and some of the most competitive crews in the sport.

The Settimana delle Bocche, however, belongs to an earlier chapter, when that international reputation was still being built. This is what gives its return particular significance: it brings the story back to one of the points where it began.

From 26 April to 1 May 2027, the waters of the Costa Smeralda will once again host a name deeply rooted in Mediterranean sailing history. The yachts will be different, the crews will be new and the racing system will be contemporary, but the setting will remain the same one that helped launch the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda onto the international sailing stage in 1972.

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Yacht Club Costa Smeralda

27 August 2026
© MED Yachting Editorial Team
Settimana delle Bocche, Porto Cervo welcomes back one of its historic regattas
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