Italy: Guido Pirrini Passed Away

Italian Assoc PRESS RELASE sent by Pier Faccin --

Cesenatico , March 28th, 2015

Italian Assoc reports that Guido Pirrini has passed away.
It is with great sadness that A Cat Italia reports that Guido Pirrini has passed away on last Saturday after a short illness: nor his physical strength nor his great courage have been effective against this fate.

Guido was a skilled and experienced sailor, characterized by a formidable competitive spirit, in line with the best tradition of Romagna, his land of origin and land of inveterate sportsmen. Among the first to join the Cat A Italia’s founding members, since then and just up to a few years ago, he animated with his unique presence the national and international A Class regattas, even achieving some personal satisfaction in terms of final classification. In this long militancy he has represented the Cesenatico’s CongregaVelisti, his loved sailing club, in some of the major events around the world: he was in Australia for two editions of the World Championships (Lake Cootharaba 1996 and Port Philip 1999), in Long Beach (USA) in the 1998 and, has never failed to qualify in many other European editions.

Guido has been gifted with a noble and generous spirit, which only came out when he got the opportunity to help others. It has been so when, during a challenging race of the VelediPasqua regatta, just a few years ago when he was close to his seventy, he abandoned the race and a good position in order to help another sailor, who had lost the contact with his boat after a capsize. Taken out the exhausted sailor from the cold water, he put him back on his boat and then he resumed his race finishing the regatta. Once at shore, he firmly refused to ask the Regatta Committee for a redress: in the Guido's opinion the discard of this result from the series was more than enough.

A Cat Italia expresses its sincere condolences to Guido’s family and friends