This 51 ft. PINTA, build in Aluminium as a cutter rigged slup, was renamed TRAITE de ROME, after the famous 1954 contract signed in Rome as the founding document for the European Union, today consisting of 15 countries, as of May 1. 2004 adding another 10 countries for a total of 450 Million inhabitans.

The reason was, she was lent to the E.U. for a race around the world, the so called WHITBREAD ROUND the WORLD race. A spin around the globe, some 30.000 miles of come hell or high water. The idea to participate in such a race came from a french journalist, Patricia Colmant, who was assigned by FRANCE SOIR to keep the frensch readers up to date about the political actions in Brussels, the seat of the European parlament. For her, the daily routine was just too boring, so she came up with the idea to send a racing yacht around the world as a kind of good will embassador, with one crew member from each of the then 9 European countries. All she had to do was write about it all in her paper and the rest would come by itself, but as so often in life, nothing came by itself, she had to work hard to get this project going. She had to get a boat, a crew to sail it, a shore based crew to organze it, money to finance it and some deep pockeded sponsors on top of it. To build a boat was the first idea, soon forgotten because they had no time for that, so Patricia went boat hunting.

To cut a long story short, she found Willie Illbruck, she got PINTA III and she christened the boat TRAITE de ROME, she got the crew together, boys and girls from those 9 countries, she even got a new ships register going, her boat is the fist boat registered, with the very nice and unique sail number:

EUR 1

TRAITE de ROME got the European flag with those 9 golden stars, one for each country, she sailed a very good race and became 3 rd boat home over all racing from Portsmough in England to Cape Town in South Aftrica, to Sidney in Australia, to Aukland in New Zealand, to Rio in Brazil back to Portsmouth. Considering that she was one of the smaller of the 18 participants, she did rather well.

All this took place 1976/77 and TRAITE de ROME did it again in 1981/82, so she has two round the world races under her keel. A tough girl to say the least.

It was at the end of this second race, that my friend Helmi Horkel and I got a call from the builders ROYAL HUISMAN, that TRAITE de ROME is going to be for sale.

Helmi and I were looking for a boat and we had been all over Europe to see what was available, we also had contacted HUISMAN, just to see what they had to offer. We made a date with the owners of TRAITE de ROME, the SAIL for EUROPE organization, we went to Holland for a trial sail and the rest is history. Since 1983 we are sailing this wonderful vessel through the European waters, from Holland to England, to Norway and Denmark, to Germany and Belgium, to Spain and Italy and we stayed in the Mediterranian ever since. We’ve been in the Balearic Islands for 10 years, we’ve been in Italy for 3 years, we’ve been in France for some time.

Currently, we are moored in ALMERIMAR, this is close to ALMERIA in the south of Spain. We are on the hard, the mast has been pulled, we are starting work to get her ready for the new sailing season. She will get a new coat of paint, both hull and deck are going to be done, the mast as well.

After that, she ready to go. Come and join us on some wonderful summer sails.