Interview Jennifer Milani, 14 April 2010
Another person from the powerboating scene that would thank their lucky stars had there been such a thing as a 28 hour day. Jennifer Milani took some time for PowerboatPro to tell us about her racing, her boat- and other designs her day to day working life and her ambitions to help aspiring female racers to start their racing career. In this interview Jennifer offers us a glimps of her life in the powerboating world. Wanna take a peek….?
Jennifer was born 22nd of March 1985 in Ivrea in Italy. Although Jennifer has a very international career in racing boats, she still lives near Allessandria Italy, some 40 km from Turin. Her daily bread Jennifer earns at the family boat preparing business of J racing team of the Milani family, situated at Lago di Viverone in the North of Italy. To complete her appearance in the powerboating scene, Jennifer also designs boats for third parties, the Belgian Powerboat P1 Evolution team 2B1 being the most eye catching. As one of her dreams Jenny secretly holds the ambition to one day be able to say that she got to design at least one boat in one of the major powerboat racing classes world wide. For her designing to get to an even higher level, Jennifer will attend the a college of fine arts starting next summer. Us here at PowerboatInfo doing the math on Jenny’s life it means that she will need a 28 hour workday to complete all her self given tasks in the powerboating scene. Being the busy lady that she is, we here at PowerboatInfo appreciate all the more the time she has taken to do this interview. Let’s ask Jennifer how she got involved in powerboat racing?
Jenny says that there is actually a funny story attached to that. Before she was born her father raced catamarans. But when his wife was pregnant with Jenny he decided not to race anymore and cleared the house of everything that had to do with his racing career. Jennifer was already 14 years old when she discovered her father had been a racer. She also didn´t discover her heritage for racing in another way as she was afraid of speed. With her knees shaking she did get in a watercraft at age 14 and for sure was afraid the first time. But the second time she already went very fast and she made the decision then and there, all by herself; she was going to be a racer.
The racing began with small boats. The first boat was a catamaran, a 3 metres long Cougar at which her father, now firmly supporting his daughter is her racing career, fitted a 35 HP outboard. The small rig went about 90 kph. Her racing moved on into mono hull T400, catamaran formula 3000 and in 2003 she began competing in the Formula 1000 international. The first year Jennifer competed in this Championship she entered several long races with different types of Catamarans and finished second in the Championship.
In 2006 Jenny attended the raid Pavia-Venezia. It was an experience that she will never forget. She was the only girl competing and the complete package was a small pilot in a small boat with the smallest engine of them all. Jenny competed in a 5 metres mono hull with 40 HP engine. On Saturday Jenny was mocked by the other pilots claiming that she would need an extra day to arrive at the same time as they would. Jenny finished second in her class!
In 2007 Jennifer Endurance Racing and this is a form of racing that Jenny still really loves. Long races on open water in a mono hull boat. And it shows in her performances on the water. In 2007 Jennifer came second in the World Championship Endurance and won the Memorial Trophy Bruno Abbate in Lake Como 2 years ago.
In 2010 Jennifer will at least attend 2 races in Spain. A World Championship race and a 4 hours endurance race called the “4 hours of Barcelona”. Jennifer will enter these races with a RIB or rigid inflatable boat. Jennifer confides in us that she loves racing in Spain. There is a good atmosphere amongst the pilots, everybody treats each other nicely and the Spanish federation is very hospitable. Jenny is also looking for ways to enter the World Championship Endurance Group B. She promises to keep us informed on where her plans take her.
As we were informed Jennifer and her family are also involved in the preparation of boats, we asked smilingly whether this would mean when we visited the shop, we would see Jenny running around in work clothes with oil on her hands and face and her handling power tools, Jenny answered with a serious yes. Jennifer is not one for fashion and a lot of girly stuff. When she is preparing a boat she feels she is the zone and looking at an engine is what makes her smile. Under the name “J Racing Team” Jenny and her father prepare both pleasure and racing boats on Lago Viverone in the North of Italy.
Jennifer is all about bringing down the walls on what is a guy or a girly thing to do and for this exact reason she started the “International Group of Women Pilots” on FaceBook. In this group women racers from whatever form of racing or class can join and put up news and features about their racing. All female pilots will be made administrators so they can put their racing material up for all to see in that group. Jennifer hopes a lot more women pilots will join and the news about the group will help aspiring female racers to start competing.
As said in the introduction, Jenny also occupies herself with designs for boats. In company tradition this involves work on pleasure boats and racing boats alike. As her biggest accomplishment in this area Jenny is very proud of being asked by the Belgium 2B1 Furnibo Powerboat P1 Evolution team to do their design for 2010. The story on how that came about is also rather funny. On FaceBook, Jenny came into contact with Benjamin van Riet who told her 2B1 were looking for a new design for the 2010 Fountain race boat. From there it took off ending with Jenny doing the design for the team. The way the situation in P1 is looking now, Jenny´s design will be unveiled at the first race of the rumoured P1 season in Yalta Ukraine. The unveiling of the 2B1 Furnibo racing boat with her design will be one of the highlights in 2010 for Jenny. And more and more people start to take notice of Jenny´s designs. Already people who are looking to have designs made have found Jenny. Even from faraway places like Florida U.S.A. Jenny has been asked to do designs for pleasure boats. She has already done a Checkmate, a Progression and a Catamaran.
Pictures courtesy of 2B1 Furnibo Racing
In her designing boats Jenny does everything by hand, contrary to the current trend to do everything on the computer. Computers are only used to fill in the colouring of the boat. Asked how Jennifer goes about an assignment for a design she says that with racing teams she has to respect the team colours and/or sponsor colours and often the colours of the flag of the nation the team comes from. Apart from that, most of Jennifer’s clients don’t give set rules and let her just be creative with it. Initially Jenny will provide the team with 3 to 4 designs for their feedback. Then usually people will get some better insight in where they want the design to go. Going from there Jennifer will create different styles and options and in that process a decision for a final design will be made.
Jennifer does not limit her creative spark to just boats. She will customize anything, even down to the flower pots of her mother. She also loves to create team logos and racing gear but also cars and bikes get a glance from her creative eye. Her inspiration she finds not so much within the industry or industrial design but more from old masters. Amongst her favourite artists are: Claude Monet, Eduard Manet, Leonardo DaVinci, Van Gogh, also MichelAngelo and Rembrandt and even works of Tintoretto. Cubism, like the works of Picasso, is not one of Jenny’s favourite styles. Jenny explains: “I don’t like the works of Picasso or other artists of cubism or those who do “abstract” work. I like to observe the care of the details in a particular context and especially understand: what is the subject!!”
About her ambitions in her design work, Jenny is also very clear: “I would love to made a graphic design for a Class1 team or a P1 Super Sport! Another dream would be to create graphics on some models of the boat directly for the yards. In particular be able to officially create some graphics for U.S.A. yards as Cigarette, Fountain, Donzi or Ourterlimits would be a dream come true.”
We at PowerboatPRO will keep a close eye on Jenny throughout 2010, following her racing and designing exploits and you can keep a close eye on PowerboatPRO to keep yourself updated on that.
For more information also please visit:
http://www.jennifermilani.wordpress.com/
