Isolaria Pacifico : “Man with no memory rescued in the middle of the Atlantic ocean”wins the Marincovich Award
I really believe in gut feelings since they have always affected my personal and professional choices. This is perhaps why, when Giacomo Giulietti – a sailor, journalist and a friend of mine – told me last July: ” Luca, would you like to publish an article written by a friend of mine dealing with a castaway rescue?”, after my question ” I know her? ” and his reply “No, you don’t, but she’s very good”, I instinctively accepted.
Then, I received the article, I read it and I almost got emotional.
Isolaria has the 
capacity to paint with words, she paints pictures that the reader tangibly sees while reading her sentences that, apparently simple, are able to reproduce actions and emotions in the reader’s mind.
That happened to me, too, while I entered the narrative and saw pictures; reading immediately engaged and captivated my attention.
While I read, I felt like I was on board with Isolaria, I was next to her and I got emotional when I lived with her the moment of the first contact with the castaway, that one when, fortunately, I understood he was alive:
” we start shouting. The boat is a 30-foot old battered ketch. We see a head in the cabin laying on a life jacket. It doesn’t move. We go on shouting. Is the person on board alive? He finally moves and looks at us. He’s an old man. His clothes are torn and his lifejacket is of poor quality, maybe more suitable for a daily boat trip”
I finished reading and I did the layout using the few pictures at my disposal. I immediately published it since such a beautiful and real article couldn’t wait or stay in a drawer.
The International Yachting Media, known in Italy as Tuttobarche.it, is the world’s most popular yachting media. Published in four different languages across more than 200 countries, our magazine is used to highly successful articles but what followed the Isolaria Pacifico’s one was something I had never seen before.
Journalists from prestigious Italian and foreign newspapers incessantly phoned us to ask whether they could publish the news in their turn and receive more pictures and information.
So, hundreds of articles were published following Isolaria’s article: some of them directly disclosed sources, others not.
Finally, last week, Isolaria wrote to tell me that the article was among the finalists of the 9th edition of the famous “Carlo Marincovich “Award, a special prize for journalism and literature named after one among the most authoritative Italian yachting and sports journalists, died in 2008.
I congratulated and wish her good luck for April 12th, when winners would have been announced.
That day, Isolaria wrote to inform me that she won the prize. The following are the words used by judges to justify their choice:
“Isolaria’s tale, published on the online magazine Boatandboats.com, stops here. But the news comes out of the informative niche of sea and yachting enthusiasts and gets TV news and national newspapers which, thanks to following researches, disclose that the castaway was a Welsh retiree used to this unbelievable lucky ventures: in 2013, he indeed got lost in the fog in the sea of England after an engine failure; on that occasion, he was not able to give rescuers his exact position but he was fortunately found and rescued.
Moreover, one of the articles published on the national newspapers has, in its turn, joined the competition but our selection was won by Isolaria Pacifico’s article since, as they say, the original is always better than its copy”.
And I can only agree with judges and, above all, I want to thank Isolaria Pacifico for choosing us to broadcast her amazing article.
Congratulations, Isolaria!
“Carlo Marincovich” Award for journalism and literature
