164 years after its launch, the cutter Sorella, a wooden auric cutter built in 1858 by the English shipyard Dan Hatcher of Southampton, officially wears stars and becomes part of the Italian Marina Militare.
Technically, despite a fitting length of just 10.97 metres, she became the oldest unit in service in the fleet, followed by Viri, an 11.35-metre Skerry Cruiser launched in Finland in 1928 and the much better known 101-metre training ship Amerigo Vespucci, launched in Castellamare di Stabia, in the province of Naples, in 1931.
The Cutter Sorella donated by Renato Pirota
The donation ceremony took place on 21 June 2022 at the Francesco Morosini Naval Military School in Venice in the presence of Padua industrialist Renato Pirota, donor and owner of Sorella for over 30 years.
“I proudly donate my boat to the Italian Navy,” said Renato Pirota, “in the knowledge that in addition to becoming a tool for training young students in sailing, given its historicity it can also bring new generations closer to naval culture.
A boat of worldwide importance
A ranking by the prestigious English magazine Classic Boat places Sorella of 1858 in fourth place (after Britannia, Tuiga and Rowdy) among the most important boats in the world.
The boat, characterised by a mirrored stern and three-quarter deck, was built in pitch pine planking on oak frames by Dan Hatcher (1817-1880), an ingenious designer and, from the age of 21, a talented shipbuilder nicknamed ‘King Dan’.
She has a length of 27 feet according to British measurements (8.38 metres hull, 10.97 metres including rig), a width of 2.74 metres, a draught of 1.50 metres and a weight of 4.5 tonnes.
Sorella it’s a Gaff Cutter
The gaff cutter rig, spread over five sails (mainsail, mainsail, foresail, bowsprit and mainsail jib), is approximately 65 square metres. According to the old ‘Rules of the Thames’ she was classed as an 8-tonne and better known as the Itchen Ferry, a vessel made for both inshore oyster and shrimp fishing and for sailing bets contested on the Thames and Solent. The first owners were brothers William and George Gordon.
Cutter Sorella, from England to Italy
Sorella’s second owner was Lieutenant Colonel F.W.J. Dugmore, former Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Among the longest-serving owners was the Fuger family of Warsash, a town south of Southampton, who kept the boat for a good 90 years and four generations. One of their members had the honour of participating in the historic ‘100 Guineas Cup’, the 1851 competition won by America around the Isle of Wight from which the America’s Cup, the world’s oldest sporting trophy, was born.
The Cutter Sorella arrived in Italy in 1988
In more recent times, after a restoration carried out in 1981 by former owner Chris Waddington, Sorella arrived in the Mediterranean in 1988 thanks to the Padua entrepreneur Renato Pirota, a lover of naval history and former owner of another important auric cutter, Moya of 1910. After participating in Tyrrhenian rallies, including Le Vele d’Epoca in Imperia and a victorious Nioulargue in Saint Tropez, she was transferred to Trieste at the end of 1989. In 1990 she underwent a new major restoration carried out by the Alto Adriatico shipyard in Monfalcone to a design by the Trieste architect Carlo Sciarrelli, a cultured Italian designer of classic boats.
Cutter Sorella among the world’s oldest boats
Sorella enters the very select club of the oldest wooden sailing vessels still in active service in the world, although she does not manage to snatch the record from the 62-metre USS (United States Ship) Constitution, the American three-masted frigate dating back to 1797 that is still registered in the US Navy and which sailed on its 200th anniversary. Even older are Admiral Nelson’s 1765 first-class vessel HMS (Her Majesty’s Ship) Victory, 69 metres long, based in Portsmouth, and the 1627 Swedish galleon Vasa of the same length, based in Stockholm. Both, however, are static museum ships.
