The powerboat racer who lost his right arm in a 1989 accident went on to become Vice President of Argentina and remains in public service today.
In early September 1986, a 29-year-old Argentine businessman arrived in Guernsey for the Peter Stuyvesant International Powerboat Week. Daniel Scioli and Lelio Gonzalez piloted their Barbot-Sarthou catamaran Frigidaire to third place in the World Championship Class III 4-litre competition.
The opening heat delivered dramatic racing. Scioli and New Zealand’s Glenn Urquhart ran so close together that they collided when rounding a turn buoy. The impact punched a hole in the New Zealand boat’s port bow and dented Frigidaire’s starboard quarter. The Race Jury ruled both crews shared blame and reversed the finishing positions, moving New Zealand from second to first and Scioli from first to second. Both teams were reported to their national federations for careless driving.
Despite the penalty, Scioli averaged 65.9mph to finish second in the opening heat and third overall in the three-race series. The race report described the Argentine team as “dark horses” competing against established European champions.
Guernsey marked the beginning of an international career that would produce five world championships and multiple international titles across different sanctioning bodies.
The Buzzi Partnership
In 1987, Scioli joined forces with Italian designer and builder Fabio Buzzi. Racing Buzzi’s FB Design boats, Scioli won the Cannes Grand Prix that year with a Spanish racing licence, becoming the first Spanish-licensed team to win an Offshore Class 2 event.
The collaboration produced immediate championship success. In 1988, Scioli captured the UIM Class 2 World Championship in Sweden. The following year he dominated the European Offshore Championship Class II with victories at Nice, Elba Aggio, Viareggio, Arendal, Oregrund and Poole, accumulating 2,200 points. He also secured the 1989 Mediterranean World Championship.
By August 1989, Scioli had won his second consecutive European Class 2 Championship. At Poole’s Needles Trophy, he drove Alba, a Buzzi-designed boat powered by Aifo engines, to victory at an average speed of 86.54mph, finishing twelve minutes ahead of the closest British competitor, John Yeoman in Unipart Lambs. The dominant performance demonstrated the effectiveness of Buzzi’s designs and Scioli’s racing skill.
He returned to Argentina to compete in the 1000 Kilometros del Delta Argentino, a promotional event designed to boost tourism along the Paraná River.
December 4, 1989
The second stage of the Delta race ran from Zárate to Rosario. President Carlos Menem had piloted Scioli’s boat the previous day for promotional purposes. On December 4, Scioli raced with Italian copilot Luca Nicolini.
At kilometre 330 near Ramallo, a cargo ship’s bow wave created a three-metre swell. The Frigidaire catamaran launched into the air and flipped. Scioli’s right arm was severed by the kevlar hull.
Competitors Christian Bühler and Roberto Casavechia rescued both men from the water and applied a tourniquet. An Air Force helicopter piloted by Captain Jorge Barbero evacuated Scioli to hospital in Rosario. He had lost two litres of blood.
Racing On
Scioli returned to competition in 1990. Fitted with a specialized prosthesis, he switched to Buzzi’s FB 55 monohull La Gran Argentina, a 50-foot vessel powered by four Aifo-Iveco diesel engines totaling 4,400hp. Buzzi designed the boat to be virtually indestructible in rough seas.
The partnership delivered world championships at Key West, the gold standard of offshore racing in the 1990s. In 1994, Scioli and Buzzi won the World Superboat Championship. The following year they captured the American Superboat Champion title after victories across Florida, defending it again in 1996 with a second-place finish in the Bahamas securing the seasonal crown.
The 1995 Key West World Championships marked Scioli’s most dominant performance. He won two world championships during the same event. Racing Baby Gran Argentina, a smaller vessel built for the Production A class, he captured that world title. He then switched to La Gran Argentina and won the Superboat Vee World Championship.
In 1997, Scioli returned to Key West and won the World Production A Championship in Baby Gran Argentina. This marked his fifth world championship title and seventh major international crown when European and Mediterranean titles are included.
Scioli retired from racing in November 1997. In 2000, racing a modified version of La Gran Argentina, he set the Miami-Nassau-Miami record at an average speed of 100mph.
The Scioli family’s involvement in powerboat racing extended beyond Daniel. His brother Nicolas raced Gran Argentina Junior at the 1998 Cowes World Championships, finishing fourth in the Class 6 litre event despite getting lost during two races.
Political Career
Scioli’s transition from sport to politics began in 1997 when he won election to Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies. His profile as a champion athlete who had overcome disability gave him national recognition through years of television coverage on Canal 9.
From 2003 to 2007, he served as Vice President of Argentina under Néstor Kirchner. He then won election as Governor of Buenos Aires Province, serving two terms from 2007 to 2015. The governorship ranks among Argentina’s most influential political positions. In 2009, he became President of the Justicialist Party, the political vehicle of Peronism.
In 2015, Scioli stood as presidential candidate for the Front for Victory party. He narrowly won the first round before losing the runoff election to Mauricio Macri by less than three percentage points.
His career in public service continued with appointments as Argentina’s Ambassador to Brazil from 2020 to 2022 and again from 2022 to 2024. In January 2024, President Javier Milei appointed him Secretary of Tourism, Environment and Sports. The appointment marked a significant cross-party move, bringing a prominent Peronist into the cabinet of a libertarian president who had campaigned against the Peronist establishment. Scioli currently holds this position.
September 2019
On September 17, 2019, both Fabio Buzzi and Luca Nicolini were killed when their boat struck an unlit breakwater near Venice after setting a new Monte Carlo-Venice record. The deaths of his two closest friends from racing devastated Scioli.
The accident occurred 30 years after the 1989 crash that cost Scioli his arm. Nicolini had been his copilot that day on the Paraná River. Buzzi had designed the boats that made him a champion.
Legacy
Daniel Scioli remains the only person to have won multiple world powerboat racing championships with a prosthetic limb. His racing career spanned 1986 to 1997 and produced five world championships, multiple international titles across UIM and SBI/APBA sanctioning bodies, and two American national championships.
His political career has now lasted longer than his time in racing. As Secretary of Tourism, Environment and Sports, he oversees policies affecting Argentina’s sports programmes and international tourism promotion.
The journey from that September day in Guernsey in 1986 to a ministerial office in Buenos Aires demonstrates both sporting excellence and personal resilience. Scioli proved champions in one field can build equally successful careers in another, even when tragedy reshapes the path forward.
Thanks to Chris Davies for scanning transparencies of the original photos he took during Daniel Scioli’s racing career.
John Moore is the editor of Powerboat News, an independent investigative journalism platform recognised by Google News and documented on Grokipedia for comprehensive powerboat racing coverage.
His involvement in powerboat racing began in 1981 when he competed in his first offshore powerboat race. After a career as a Financial Futures broker in the City of London, specialising in UK interest rate markets, he became actively involved in event organisation and powerboat racing journalism.
He served as Event Director for the Cowes–Torquay–Cowes races between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, he launched Powerboat Racing World, a digital platform providing global powerboat racing news and insights. The following year, he co-founded UKOPRA, helping to rejuvenate offshore racing in the United Kingdom. He sold Powerboat Racing World in late 2021 and remained actively involved with UKOPRA until 2025.
In September 2025, he established Powerboat News, returning to independent journalism with a focus on neutral and comprehensive coverage of the sport.
