Stefano Casiraghi: 29 Years Ago, His Last Tragic Race

From the Archives – Motorboats

Wednesday, October 3, 1990: The sky is gray over Monte Carlo. A blanket of clouds, from which occasional splashes of water break free, covers the Principality and the sea off the French Riviera, made increasingly choppy by the strong sirocco wind that is whipping up ever-steeper waves. These aren’t the best conditions for pushing a speedboat to its limits. Even though it’s designed to race and take on the sea at 100 knots.

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On board one of the offshore boats competing in the Monaco leg of the world championship—which was then at the height of its popularity with the public and sponsors—is Stefano Casiraghi, the handsome Italian beloved by all (at least officially) who managed to marry Princess Carolina of Monaco. The Monegasque entrepreneur is 30 years old and has three children—Andrea, Charlotte, and Pier—and that morning he is at the helm of *Pinot di Pinot*, a red-and-white catamaran, assisted by Patrice Innocenti, his co-pilot. Stefano knows that if he wants to remain “World Champion”—defending the title he won the previous year in a monohull—he has no choice but to finish first in this second race of the leg, which has become second nature to him.

The Last Race

On Monday, the first leg didn’t go too well. The stage started two hours late due to poor visibility, and Casiraghi, who was in eighth place at the time, decided to stop to assist the crew of a competing team whose boat was on fire. Reinstated to the same position in accordance with the rules, he was now obligated to win. Stefano saw no other possible outcome for himself at the end of the 97-mile race between Monte Carlo, Cap Ferrat, and Nice, with three mark rounds. At the briefing on Wednesday morning, he appeared in high spirits and made plans for the future. Like buying a new, better-equipped boat, for example. He wants one like the one owned by Adriano Panatta, the former tennis player, equipped with a windshield and a cushioned seat.

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As he sets off from the harbor docks, his parents look out at the sea with concern; they know how determined Stefano is and are uneasy: “Let’s hope he decides to call it quits,” are the words more than one person hears his father repeating. Carolina, on the other hand, is in Paris; she is scheduled to return tomorrow. At the start, the sirocco is blowing even stronger, and the sea is even rougher.

No one, however, is considering suspending the race: it’s a world championship, and the sailors know what it means to race in these conditions; ultimately, it’s up to each individual to decide whether to tackle the sea or not. And Stefano doesn’t just want to face it—he wants to dominate it, along with all the other competitors. As he takes off at full speed, determined to leave everyone else in his wake, the conditions begin to thin out the fleet.

One of the first to give in is the then European champion Angelo Spetta, who would later declare:

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“The boat candled pulled up by a wave and luckily I went back down straight. I had just decided to take off the throttle, but the engine didn’t respond in time. So I decided to stop.”

Then it is the turn of Vincenzo Polli, another historical name in offshore:

“After a couple of jumps of my boat I slowed down, you couldn’t risk it like that. But I saw Casiraghi pulling at full speed, sticking himself in the waves.”

While the boat from Como races toward the lead, two other crews—Sireg and Reggiani—capsize in the sea, but the only one injured is Marcello Curioni, a crew member who hits his head violently against the hull. When the clock reaches 11:18 Two waves come crashing in, bringing this moment to a halt in the history of powerboat racing. The first throws the Pinot di Pinot off balance, and the second—even higher and more treacherous—first causes the catamaran to pitch up and then capsizes it, and the boat immediately begins to sink from the stern. Patrice Innocenti is thrown overboard and tries to cling to the keel while waiting for help; he is seriously injured, with multiple fractures to his pelvis and right shoulder, and struggles immensely to swim, while Stefano is still at the helm, which is now underwater. It is believed that he became entangled.

Ironically, Casiraghi had declined the helicopter that usually follows him during races. However, other boats stopped, and some people dove in to try to free the Italian driver, including Domenico Achilli and the Englishman Steve Curtis. But Stefano was already dead. The impact had broken his spine just below the neck.

At 11:20 a.m., there are already divers who arrived with the organization’s helicopters extracting the lifeless body of the pilot and laying it on the deck of another catamaran, that of Emanuele Colletta, to bring it to shore.

It almost seems like a cruel joke, according to his friend Luisella Berrino, a journalist at Radio Monte Carlo. Stefano—or Carolino, as many called him after his wife’s name—had apparently intended to give in to the requests of his wife and parents by retiring from racing at the end of this season to devote himself solely to organizing the event.

Red flags are placed on the buoys, but some competitors don’t notice them and keep going—like Panatta, who will have to stop anyway due to a mechanical failure. Given the commotion caused by the accident, the former tennis player was tossed about by the waves for over an hour before a rescue vessel picked him up and towed him to port.
As Carolina arrives in the principality already dressed in black, the reigning Prince Rainier of Monaco declares that, to commemorate and honor the memory of his beloved son-in-law, the races will continue as planned.

“That’s what Stefano would have wanted”

In reality, the races were later canceled as a sign of mourning amid much controversy over the safety of the offshore world championship. Just a few days before Stefano’s death, the very young Antonio Guarducci, only 23 years old, had died in a European championship race. Despite the cancellation of the race in Monte Carlo, many drivers attended the funeral. It was also decided that, following the funeral service, a procession of yachts and motorboats would carry a wreath to the stretch of sea where Casiraghi’s boat had capsized.

Image source: www.offshoreonly.com