Koala VI Sailing Boat

EXCURSION SCHEDULE:

We start from Kastelous in Glaronissi for our first dive, continue to Kero and around in Daskalio and then set sail if we have a favorable wind towards Schinoussa and Ofidoussa beach. After our swim there we continue to Heraklia for swimming in wonderful beaches with crystal clear waters. We return to the port of Schinoussa for food and a tour of the country for anyone who wishes. Return to Koufonisi with a stop at the Kastelous of Kato Koufonisi for an idyllic sunset.

“KOALA VI” SAILING BOAT INFORMATION:
* The sailing yacht “KOALA VI” (KOALA 6) is the sixth model in a series of 7 different racing yachts built by Studio Vallicelli and architect/shipbuilder Pierluigi Spadolini in Italy in the last century. These seven “KOALA” were always built to order each, (about 1 new model every 10 years) for some of the famous and important clients of the Shipbuilders/designers and the priority of the design of each model was racing sailing performance, aesthetics but also the comforts or peculiarities that each future owner was looking for…
Each “KOALA” model was different from the other “KOALA”, they built only one boat of each model, all by hand with natural materials, such as wood, metal, marble, glass, fabric, leather, and because they were designed to order, it had elements of the particularities and character of each future owner.
More specifically, the “KOALA VI” model was the sixth model in the series, a model manufactured in 1988 by order of the well-known Italian businessman Giovanni “Gianni” Agnelli who was also the owner of the Fiat group.
It is a wooden-steel boat, 15 meters racing.
After the delivery of the boat the boat traveled with its owner for 2 years where in 1990 it was “given” to the family of the then Prime Minister of Italy Giovanni Spadolini. At the time, this “transaction” was heavily commented on by the local Italian press and was seen by many as a “bribery” in exchange for other industrial licensing of Agnielli’s companies.
In the hands of the Spadolini family the boat received some further improvements by designer/builder Vismara (who by then had become famous for designing the Italian boats that raced in the America’s Cup and won all the cups) and the original designer Vallicelli had protested why did they modify the original design of the boat…
Of course, in the following years “KOALA VI”, with Vismara’s improvements, was able to win 3 Italian sailing championships in a row and become famous in sailing circles, so Vallicelli’s protests discreetly stopped.
At some point Giovanni Spadolini was diagnosed with serious health issues and passed away in 1994 with Prime Ministerial honors, and then his brother Pierluigi Spadolini continued to travel with “KOALA VI” and his family, across the Atlantic and almost all of the Mediterranean , devoting several years to the region of Greece.
Several years later, in 2000, the brother Pierluigi Spadolini also passed away and the family decided to sell the boat to a “famous Italian” like the rest of the “KOALA”. Then the Architect Stelios Koutsikos, who was also a presidential member of the Naval Group of Greece, who maintained very friendly relations with the former prime minister and his family, and given that he was a famous sailor and also on the board of the large Naval Group of Greece, despite fact that he was not Italian, he asked for his purchase and the Spadolini family accepted and in 2001 “KOALA VI” came to Greece in the Nautical Club of Greece where several aesthetic and functional improvements were made and participated in many sailing races in Greece with several successes, cups and first places, despite the fact that she was competing with much more modern boats and left the his legacy in the history of the Greek sailing championship.
Since 2015, it has been in the hands of a company that is slowly rebuilding it in order to live again in the future, the racing glories of the past!