The Felice Manin: A Ligurian Trader of the Nineteenth Century by Luigi Cappellini
A fully-laden leudo in light airs. The forward rake of the mast allows the sail to be trimmed in various ways with a minimum of chafing.
In 1981, I was spending the weekend with a friend from Milan at his house on the Riva Trigosa near Genoa, when I came across an abandoned leudo lying on the beach . It was a lucky find for me, because at the time I was tired of my work in real estate and was looking for a change of pace. The Ieudo , Felice Manin , was in fairly sound shape, although she obviously needed work, and the idea of restoring her to sailing condition appealed to me . I understood that it was impossible to have a hobby of that kind as well as a job, so I set out to make Felice Manin my work, and to make it important work. Leudos were the mainstay of the Ligurian coastal trading fleets around Genoa. They were built, owned , sailed and managed by families who traded in them as far as Sicily and North Africa carrying whatever cargos were profitable. They were lateen rigged, their masts stepped at an angle 60° forward of perpendicular, very broad and with flat bottoms so they could be dragged up on the beach , which allowed the families to avoid the expense and worry of dock or pier maintenance. In the case of Felice Manin, which was built in 1891, her original owners, named Ghio , built her to carry cheese from Sardinia to Sestri Levante, a community twenty miles southeast of Genoa. To start out with I didn 't know anything about old boats--0r any boats , for that matter-when I bought Felice Manin . I had sailed maybe half a dozen times , but always on lakes and with people who had no interest in teaching me to sail, though I had never been too insistent. As for the restoration work, I had a choice between repairing her the right way and repairing her the wrong way . She had traded under sail until World War II, and after the war she had been rigged down and an engine was installed. She had continued trading until the early 1970sher last owners , named Schiaffino, used her to bring wine from Elba-and had been abandoned on the beach. At the same time that her engine was installed, a cabin was built on the deck aft. The people of the area asked me what I was going to do with the deckhouse . It was an important issue with them, and their initial impressions of me depended largely on what I would do with it. I said that the first thing I would do with the leudo would be to remove the cabin. Not only did they then agree to help me, but they wanted to get involved, especially the older people.
Community effort was the rule. In this scene there are over
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twenty people hauling on the stern lines to bring the leudo ashore . When they are finished here, their efforts will probably be needed by the approaching vessel in the left background.