Leon Pancaldo and Slam on a
shared journey


The brand has restored the legendary training ship in Savona and is putting it back in the water for use by students, to raise awareness of environmental issues, and for the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients.

Leon Pancaldo and Slam on a<br>shared journey

However long and hard the journey has been, sooner or later a ship has to return to port and come home to the people waiting to greet it and celebrate its return.
The return of the Leon Pancaldo, a legendary 60-foot ketch used as a training ship, has proven to be much longer and more difficult than expected.

Built in 1980 and based on a project by celebrated designer Luca Brenta, the ship is named after the seafarer from Savona who kept a precious ship’s log of the glorious Magellan circumnavigation in 1519. The ship’s name is testimony to its unbreakable bond with Savona.

The Leon Pancaldo was taken over by the Nautical Institute in 1990, with which it brought home a respectable list of accomplishments: besides its participation in the Colombo ’92 regatta on occasion of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, it was also present in 1996 at the Cutty Sark in Palma de Mallorca and enjoyed a victory in the Mediterranean Odyssey in 2002, when a group of eighty students and twenty instructors took turns sailing it for a full seventy-five days, in a crossing that berthed in a large number of Mediterranean ports before finally docking in Corfu. After hosting many students and becoming one the symbols of the city of Savona, however, the sailing ship suffered damage in an accident that made it impossible to sail, and risked falling into disuse.

This is when the paths of Slam and the Leon Pancaldo crossed and became one. Slam purchased the ship from the Ferraris - Pancaldo Technical Nautical Institute and decided to restore it completely, then, in agreement with the school, to place it in service for students once again. Furthermore, in addition to the 10 annual trips planned for students and the other institutes of the region, Slam plans to carry out numerous other activities.

Together with the Menkab, il respiro del Mare non-profit organisation, founded by Prof. Maurizio Wurtz and currently headed by Giulia Calogero, and the One Ocean Foundation, the organisation for the protection of marine ecosystems, of which Mauro Pelaschier, Knight Commander of the Italian Republic, is an ambassador, Slam plans to use the Leon Pancaldo for a series of sea trips serving to raise awareness of the need to protect the oceans.
It was the celebrated former yachtsman himself who, last 29 July, sailed the ship to Savona and finally brought it back into its home port after the restoration had been completed by the Mariotti shipyard of Genoa and the Marina Service shipyard.


Leon Pancaldo is once again playing a fundamental role in social and healthcare activities, thanks to collaboration with the Il Barattolo association of Savona, supported by Prof. Giovanni Giusto and by the director of the Ser.T (drug addition service), Roberto Carrozzino, which will work to assist the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients through sailing and a direct relationship with the sea.

With its return home, Leon Pancaldo itself will become a home, without discrimination, to anyone who could benefit from sailing activities. There is, in fact, one thing that an expert sailor knows for sure, and that is that the sea always has something to teach and something to give to each and every one of us.