Guido Caimi's victories
The 1971 season saw the abandonment of circuit racing by champion Giulio De Angelis, in search of new exciting victories in the offshore categories. As for the sporting results of this year, the exceptional performance of Guido Caimi stands out above all, recalling 1967, obtaining a magnificent hat-trick of international titles. The Milanese champion, after a somewhat muted 1970, in the '71 season collected a series of laurels by winning both the world and European championship of the R2 1500 cc racers and the European championship of the 91" APBA. Analyzing the world championship disputed on the waters of the Ticino, in Sesto Calende, we note the superiority exhibited by Caimi in managing to detach all his opponents, winning the first two heats and then limiting himself to managing his advantage over the Roman Massimo Funaro as best he could during the dispute of the third heat, which was then won by Erino Facchini. The final classification of the championship sees on the podium, in order: Caimi Guido with 40'09"6, Massimo Funaro with 41'16"9, finally Erino Facchini with 41'23"0. Following, further behind, in fourth position are Orfeo Maltinti and in fifth Giuseppe Roda; next we find the trio of French pilots composed of Michel Barone, Lucien Nugue and Renè Casset; finally the other Italians, Mattioli and Casanova, the latter having retired from the first laps of the first heat due to an irreparable mechanical failure. It should be noted that the competitors have boats from the Molivio shipyard with Alfa Romeo Raineri engines, with the exception of Roda, Mattioli and Casanova (Molivio-Alfa Romeo).

The European championship of the R2 1500 cc is organized in Lyon on the French waters of the Rhone river: this title, unlike the world championship, is scheduled over four heats with a final classification based on the sum of the three best scores and this year sees Caimi clearly prevail in the first three tests. Our rider wins the first heat over Nugue and Facchini and the second over Facchini and Nugue; finally he closes the third heat in style ahead of Nugue and Barone. With the European title already mathematically won, Caimi decides to desert the last heat leaving the victory to Facchini, with Nugue and Casset in second and third position respectively. In addition to Guido Caimi and Facchini, the Italian team, for this championship, also counts on Casanova who, evidently is having a decidedly negative year: for the umpteenth time he suffers a mechanical failure in both first tests and is thus excluded from any possibility of final victory. The general classification of the continental championship records the first place of Guido Caimi. Behind the world champion we find Facchini and the squadron of transalpine pilots with Nugue, Casset, Burgraff and Barone. All the participants line up boats from the Molivio shipyard with Alfa Romeo Raineri engines.

The third title won by Guido Caimi is the 91" APBA European Championship held in Sabaudia. Also in this circumstance, Caimi obtains two victories in the first two heats, finding his teammate Facchini as the most fearsome opponent. In the third heat, Caimi is forced to retire and the victory smiles on Nosè, ahead of Facchini and Nugue. In the last and decisive test, with Caimi's return to the race, our champion only needs to finish in third position behind Facchini and Nosè to savor the joy of the third international title. The final ranking of the 91" APBA continental championship sees Guido Caimi first, Erino Facchini second, Lucien Nugue third, Alessandro Nosè fourth and Massimo Funaro fifth. Leopoldo Casanova's unfavorable moment continues and he finishes, unfortunately, without a score; after retiring in the first heat, in the second he is demoted for early start, and then does not enter the water in the following heats.
Also in this championship all the competitors raced on Molivio-Alfa Romeo Raineri boats.

International and Italian circuit competitions
In the same class, during the Italian Grand Prix held in Castelgandolfo, dedicated to the memory of the former FIM president Mario Agusta, the world title is awarded. In the three scheduled heats, the usual Guido Caimi wins in the opening race, preceding Casanova and Dalmas. But it is the Frenchman Nugue who wins the remaining two heats, beating Dalmas and Casset in the second and Foresti and Dalmas in the third. Overturning any predictions that had Guido Caimi, Casanova, Facchini or Nugue as favourites, surprisingly the most consistent Pierpaolo Dalmas wins by adding the times of the three heats, securing the world title ahead of the French Casset and Nugue. In fourth place in the final classification, we find Foresti, only fifth Caimi and followed by Casanova, Facchini, Rousset and Gerardo. The second heat proves fatal for Caimi when a mechanical failure takes him out of the race on the fourth lap while he is catching up with Nugue. Once again Casanova's performance is decidedly unlucky: this time he is aboard his new hull Popoli which, however, after the second place in the first heat, is no longer able to restart. The performance offered by Facchini is also less than satisfactory, absent in the first heat, demoted for hitting the buoy in the second and only fifth in the third. In this 91" APBA racers championship, the presence of the French Renault engine on Gerard Rousset's hull represents the only variation to the monopoly of the Alfa Romeo Raineri (eight of the nine hulls in the race adopt the Milanese engine).

Let's now move on to the small class of R1 1000 cc racing inboard boats. The world championship is held in Boretto Po, with 10 pilots from four different nations competing. The English Chesman, Noone and Mousley with IMP-Lagman hulls powered by Chrysler; the Germans Weise, Oppel and the reigning champion Von Freyeberg with their Danisch with Wartburg engines; the Swiss Joseph Ulrich on Motorboat Zentral-DKW. Some of our pilots are also taking part, including Luigi Dell'Orto with a San Marco-Ford, Walter Maltinti and Giorgio Ghiretti with their Molivio-Hillman IMP and Bianchi-Ford Anglia respectively. The final victory goes to the British Herbert Noone over his fellow countrymen Andrew Chesman and John Mousley. Noone recorded a time of 36'53"8, against Chesman's 37'07"6; excellent, therefore, the test by the English boats, considering how little time these pilots have been competing in this new class that, initially, interested mostly the Germans, Czechoslovakians and Italians. Among the results achieved by our pilots, we only point out a disappointing seventh place in the final classification obtained by Luigi Dell'Orto.

In the R4 2500 cc racers, both Benito Casinghini and Antonio Petrobelli debuted on their Celli boats the newly developed Alfa Romeo Montreal V8 engines, derived from the sports car from the Arese company. In Garlate, on the waters of Lake Como, Casinghini won the world championship ahead of the reigning champion Aliani. In the three heats, the victories went to Casinghini, Ivernizzi and Mazzoli. It was Casinghini, however, who achieved the fastest time, finishing at 41'25"2, against Aliani's 42'16"9. In third place in the final standings, we find Invernizzi, fourth the rookie Mazzoli, fifth Bodda and sixth Joseph Ulrich (the only foreigner in the race). Finally, far behind, follow Ottone, Dosi and Foresti, the latter the only driver in the race with a BMW engine.
Antonio Petrobelli is absent from this competition, but he takes part in the European championship, run on the Po River, in Sacca di Colorno. The champion from Padua manages to beat the tenacious Franco Foresti only thanks to the fastest test. In fact, after the four heats, the two rivals have obtained two first places and a second place. In the final ranking, behind the winner Petrobelli and the second placed Foresti, we have, in third position Aliani and in fourth Casinghini. The other Italian Ottone and the only foreigner present, who, also in this championship, is the Swiss Jospeh Ulrich, are not classified. Despite the second place in the ranking, particular credit must be given to Foresti for having managed to bring the powerful 6-cylinder BMW engine to a step away from victory in competitions in which, by now, the dominance of Alfa Romeo is more than consolidated.

In the Italian championships we witness the success of Giuseppe Roda in the LV 1300 cc racers, a class now kept alive after Erino Facchini's fleet of boats has run out. In the R2 1500 cc inboard racing class, a rather small number of boats compete, despite the fact that this class also includes some 91" APBAs.

After winning the world title, Benito Casinghini obtained another victory in the Italian championship of the R4 2500 cc class, preceding Invernizzi, Dosi (who took to the water with a three-point hull from the Popoli shipyard with forward guidance, having the engine installed at the rear) and Petrobelli. On the basis of these results, 1971 also proved to be a year of important successes in the racer categories; Alfa Romeo Corse, with its engines, won three world championships, as many European and Italian ones, a French championship and several world records for speed, distance and duration. The Flaminia 2500 cc trophy always demonstrated the quality of this class which, although it suffered from competition from the more famous R4, managed to offer the public hard-fought races with a fair number of drivers. For the second consecutive year, the trophy was won by Gianpiero Maurelli on Aldo Martinetto, both aboard hulls from the Eugenio Molinari shipyard. The real revelation of this category was the third place of the very fast Luigi Preda and his three-pointer from the Timossi shipyard equipped with a rear engine; this solution is increasingly in vogue in the new way of conceiving inboard sailing.

Cross-country races and new speed records
In cross-country races, Massimo Signorini's fine performance at the first edition of the Giro del Garda in Peschiera stands out in particular. Signorini uses a Celli-BPM 8000 cc three-point hull, named Rioma, with the characteristics of a true racer, even though it is registered in the S°° sport inboard class over 7000 cc .

Roberto Brunelli, with his Timossi-BPM of the R°° class over 7000 cc, wins, also this season, the Raid Pavia-Venezia which has reached its thirty-first edition. The driver from Parma, with an average of 164.653 km/h, in a time of 2'22"07, in addition to winning the race, wins the Coppa d'Oro Theo Rossi di Montelera for the best speed achieved in the timed section Isola Serafini-Revere, with 176.086 km/h. In second place, in the overall ranking, we have Franco Migliavacca from Pavia competing with a powerful A.Molinatri-Alfa Romeo racer of the R4 2500 cc class

From long-distance racing we come to speed records where we point out, for the year 1971, the new world limit obtained by the Milanese driver Franco Gilberti in the R4 2000 cc inboard racing class. On the rather icy waters of Sebino, in Sarnico, on 9 December, Gilberti, driving a hull from the Popoli shipyard with very aerodynamic lines, powered by an Alfa Romeo 2000 cc, achieved, in the calculation of the two passages (ascending and descending) of the measured base, an average of 162.760 km/h. On the same day Gilberti achieved two other important world speed records. Always using the same Popoli hull, to which a modification was made to the cockpit, widening it to fit within the specific regulations of the sport classes, our driver achieved a higher average with 168.620 km/h, establishing the new record for the S3 2000 cc inboard sports. Furthermore, changing boats and replacing it with an Abbate-Alfa Romeo Montreal catamaran, with 144.010 km/h, it also sets a new record for the S4 2500cc sport inboard class.