Niña Luisita, Staysail SchoonerRef. CP120

They say that Naval Engineer Vittorio Baglietto, grandson of the famous Italian Yard's founder, took inspiration from Charles Nicholson drawings, when Count Bruzzo placed an order for his next boat: a 20 m. schooner. She was to be the last out of three big sailers built by Baglietto between the Twenties and Thirties. All of them are still afloat, the two others being the “Janua” and the “La Spina”. Count Bruzzo's Schooner was called “Pofi” and many details on board tell us about the care he put while following the building process. The bow overhang for example, closely followed the Count's taste. He was an Eight metre Racing passionate, while Baglietto draw for the rest a more cruising biased hull lines. The Schooner rig too was probably Bruzzo's choice. In fact it replicates the Niña's innovative shape, the formidable racer from William Starling Burgess (1928). Due to the big difference in height between the main and the stay-sail masts, the triatic stay, which passes on both trucks, goes straight to the bowsprit, thus allowing to hoist two different enormous sails: a genoa and the gollywobbler (a kind of Fisherman), both with the sheet tacked to the boom end. This rig became to be known as... "Two masts cutter"! Below decks, the schooner keeps still today all the feel and original taste of the era and also Count Bruzzo's touch: a large owner's state room with two chests of drawers, one with a small secretaire. An owner's ensuite with bathroom, the light and ventilated saloon and particularly a small Virgin made of Murano's glass that Count Bruzzo asked be placed on a niche before the owner's bed. She still today protects the vessel and her owners. The “Pofi”, as was called the schooner, has a very tranquil cruising life, sailing around the Mediterranean waters, starting from her home port of Rapallo. Bruzzo family was involved in the Italian sailing sport during the years before and after World War 2. The “Pofi” passed that difficult war period calmly moored in Rapallo, without novelties. Towards the end of the Sixties, an ageing Count Bruzzo received several insistent requests to sell the schooner from Count Tagliaferri. Count Bruzzo at the end accepted to sell in 1971 and the schooner is known since as the “Niña Luisita”, in honour of the Count's mother and of his Argentinan wife. Counts Tagliaferri carried on with the Med cruises, now from Imperia as home port. When the “Niña Luisita” reached 55 years, in 1987, they sent her to Baglietto Yard for a deep general refit. At the Yard some old workers did recognise the old “Pofi” and her particular building! Then she received her third teak deck, a new main mast as well as a new halyard winch to easy the hauling of the main and some improvement to the interior electric lights. For the rest, she continued to be as when she was born. This is the reason why the “Niña Luisita” occupies a honour place among the classic races fleet that in the meantime spread along the Mediterranean Sea. In 2006 and 2007 a new refit work saw the engine replacement and new electric wire system and panel, under the supervision of famous Naval Architect Franco Giorgetti. In 2022 she was again restored in Barcelona: some planks, the forefoot and the stern-post where replaced with new pieces, the caulking made new, new pain to the topsides, etc., etc. Today she is in very good conditions and keeps with proud her original shape, her rig and her famous interior.