Pazza Regata Lake Garda: Record-Breaking, Creative Boat Races
Nothing but the best. Ready to surprise but above all to have fun at the Pazza Regata, a must-attend event every Assumption Day for the upper lake. Now in its seventh edition, the event has set records for non-nautical boats registered, becoming rightly a date to mark on the calendar.
The participants—who might be called crazy in honor of the races—are actually people who know Lake Garda inside out, its beauty and its pitfalls. Children, youths, and adults who, drawing on experience gained in real races on the lake’s waves, manage to launch boats that are almost always unsinkable despite the most desperate assemblages.
Nothing safer or more buoyant, for example, than Grandma’s double-door wardrobe transformed into a nautical vessel, thanks to two inflatable chambers strapped onto the back. Inside, sitting on a white camisole dresser with vintage underwear, is an untrustworthy little old lady, aka Franco Pasqualini from Sona, more focused on hanging out laundry than steering the sailboat.
Accidents and improvisational races
The result: a collision first with a boat anchored within the regatta field, then a gentle impact against the giant yellow buoy just a few meters from the Nautico Acquafresca center. And to think that, to add more stability to the craft, boat owner Ivan Bazerla from Brenzone decided—wisely considering his size—not to enter the floating wardrobe recovered a few days ago from the Malcesine landfill, where it is now destined to return.
A race, it must be said, far from regular, and this is well known—it’s part of the event’s origin. With boats in the water starting at different times, due to the impossibility of simultaneously lining up wardrobes, chairs, balls, strollers, sinks, high chairs, and even a giant paper boat eight meters long.
All vessels that, thanks to the use of inflatable chambers, bamboo canes, bottles, Styrofoam assembled with tie rods and duct tape, provided stability to the craft. This time, also facing incursions from the «barcascontri». A team game that saw Matteo Seppi and Andrea Mattei from Malcesine, along with Jacopo Negri from Riva, remain seated with helmets on inside three separate tractor tire inner chambers.
While Seppi attempted to reach the finish line, his two companions had the task of knocking over rival boats. The tactic completely failed due to both the high number of participants and the speed of nine boys from Pescantina, ready to swim with their colorful boards, tied together with string.
Prizes and awards
The jury then awarded the Narcissus trophy to Pravana Jizni, the paper boat of «Amici per la vita», built by Antonio and Michele Tognoli from Verona. Father and son worked for days to assemble the vessel, which soon sank.
The Leonardo da Vinci award went instead to the ingenious Arno and Mina Pernthaler, two children from Alto Adige onboard the Be-free, made from empty bottles, packing nylon, and bamboo canes. A special prize for the youngest contestants: Martina Tedeschi, 5 years old, onboard the «Lavandino jet», and her brother Matteo, eight, on the Reef: a deck chair kept afloat by plastic bottles.
