Skippers Giovanni Soldini and Vincenzo Onorato are the front-runners for this year's 'Helmsman of the Year' award, which will be handed out here Tuesday night.
The 'Timone d'Oro' (Golden Tiller) prize is one of several Sailor of the Year awards which since 1991 have been handed out to the Italian helmsman, ship designer and boat which achieved international recognition over the previous year.
Soldini, who won in 1994, was nominated for winning the Transat Jacques Vabre race from France to Brazil, while 2006 winner Onorato bagged his nomination for winning the Farr 40 world championship for the second year in a row with his Mascalzone Latino team.
Other skippers up for the award are Flavio Favini, the European Melges 24 class champion; Luigi Amedeo Melegari, the Mumm 30 Matrix champion; and three-time winner (1996, 2000 and 2004) Alessandra Sensini, who by clinching another windsurf world championship last year qualified for Beijing 2008, which will be her fifth trip to the Olympics.
This year a new Under 25 category was added to the Sailor of the Year awards.
Up for this prize will be Sensini's 'heir' and ISAF Youth Windsurf Champion Laura Linares; Edoardo Mancinelli-Scotti, the European 420 champion; and Matteo Savelli, the Italian match race champion, who was a member of Mascalzone Latino's Farr 40 team.
Candidates for the Designer of the Year award are Andrea Vallicelli, who revamped the small Comet racing sloop; Claudio Maletto, a member of the design team for Luna Rossa, which reached the finals for the Louis Vuitton Cup, which designates the official America's Cup challenger; and Umberto Felci, whose race cruisers dominated regattas in Italy and Spain in 2007.
In the Boat of the Year category, the candidates are the Grand Soleil 37, Comet 45s and Class 40 Telecom Italia.
This year's Sailor of the Year Special Prize, in recognition of promoting the sport of sailing, has been awarded to Ernesto Bertarelli, the head of the Alinghi syndicate which successfully defended the America's Cup in Valencia.
''I am very honored to receive this recognition from a country, Italy, which as everyone knows has always been in my heart,'' he said after hearing he would receive the award.
The Swiss biotechnology billionaire was born in Rome but grew up in Switzerland, where his father built up a pharmaceutical business which today is Europe's largest biotech company, Sereno.
This year's Sailor of the Year jury is composed of Raffaele Pagnozzi, the secretary general of the Italian Olympic committee CONI; Sergio Gaibasso, chairman of the Italian Sailing Federation; Gianfranco Busatti, deputy chairman of the Italian Sailing Federation; Andrea Brambilla, editor of Yacht & Sail magazine; Guglielmo Fadda, marketing chief for prize sponsor Audi; and Alberto Acciari, the creator and secretary of the Sailor of the Year awards.
