THE LARGEST SAILING RACE IN THE WORLD
Trieste, 1 - 12 October 2025
Trieste, 1 - 12 October 2025
Barcolana - News01.09.21
#WomeninSailing - Daniela Accettella
Technologist aboard the Laura Bassi: “A workplace that founds its own culture on respect, creates the terms for gender equality”.
Daniela Accettella is the group technologist on the Laura Bassi, an oceanographic research vessel for OGS, Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografica e di Geofisica Sperimentale. With a degree in physics, her job is to monitor the ship from the point of view of the management of the scientific equipment. She deals with bathymetric data, and sets the research campaign according to the researchers’ necessities. She comes from a small town in Abruzzo and for her, the OGS and Trieste have always been a goal.
After the campaign in the Arctic, during the first part of the year, Accettella is now getting ready for the campaign in the Antarctic, scheduled for the next few months, and is working on the fine-tuned setting of equipment and software on board, delicate and strategic operations necessary to reach the pre-set results of the campaign.
“I’ve been working at the OGS for many years and in this structure, here in Trieste, I believe we are very advanced when it comes to awareness regarding gender equality issues. I believe that the heritage of the past, the Hapsburg tradition, has left a strong legacy in terms of gender equality. I am from Abruzzo and I can feel the difference in other places. This attitude is reflected also on board our ship: respect comes first and this always helped me in my role on the Explora and now also on the Laura Bassi. It is an important subject because we navigate for weeks in challenging locations, in conditions that are, at times, extreme”.
“Personally, I am convinced that respect is the basis of everything: if people respect everyone’s intellectual abilities it is clear that one immediately overcomes gender-related issues. Being respectful of everyone’s competence at a workplace is the key to solving all gender-related problems. A work place that builds its corporate culture around mutual respect can really claim to be progressive from this point of view’.
After the campaign in the Arctic, during the first part of the year, Accettella is now getting ready for the campaign in the Antarctic, scheduled for the next few months, and is working on the fine-tuned setting of equipment and software on board, delicate and strategic operations necessary to reach the pre-set results of the campaign.
“I’ve been working at the OGS for many years and in this structure, here in Trieste, I believe we are very advanced when it comes to awareness regarding gender equality issues. I believe that the heritage of the past, the Hapsburg tradition, has left a strong legacy in terms of gender equality. I am from Abruzzo and I can feel the difference in other places. This attitude is reflected also on board our ship: respect comes first and this always helped me in my role on the Explora and now also on the Laura Bassi. It is an important subject because we navigate for weeks in challenging locations, in conditions that are, at times, extreme”.
“Personally, I am convinced that respect is the basis of everything: if people respect everyone’s intellectual abilities it is clear that one immediately overcomes gender-related issues. Being respectful of everyone’s competence at a workplace is the key to solving all gender-related problems. A work place that builds its corporate culture around mutual respect can really claim to be progressive from this point of view’.
