After 14 days 3 hours and 40 minutes from the departure in front of the Isle of Gorée in Dakar, the six metre Beachcat Ocean Cat crossed the finish line in front of Pointe à Pitre, in Guadeloupe.
The two Italian sailors, Giammarco Sardi and Tullio Picciolini did not manage to improve the record of Vittorio and Nico Malingri, from April 2017, but accomplished an equally unique undertaking for the particularly demanding weather conditions they found during the route.
Starting on February 5th from Dakar, after waiting for more than a month for the best wind conditions, they left the African coast with light wind and a meteorological condition that disregarded all expectations with an unstable trade wind that accompanied the two sailors to the arrival.
A first 90 degree capsize happened on the sixth day, then a second capsize on the ninth day, this time to 180 degrees with the mast in the water.
And then a third capsize, again to 180 degrees, on the eve of the twelfth day, the last one due to very challenging weather conditions with a breeze that has reached 40 knots of intensity and wave up to six meters.
The thing that surprised them the most, from the second day, was the hallucinations: the sound of the sea and the wind seem to be the sound of a radio, a background music that accompanied them all day long.
Giammarco Sardi as soon as he touched the ground said he was, “Demolished. The instability weather has created us great difficulties. I expected a challenging undertaking, but not as much as we lived it.”
A very hard crossing also for Tullio Picciolini, not new to these adventures, but nevertheless satisfied with having completed it . . .
“During this crossing we have touched and understood well that with one a more careful and environmentally friendly lifestyle, man can really do something to protect the planet.”
“I think of the problem of sargassis, these expanses of algae that increasingly invade the ocean. We never talk about it, but it really seems that they are generated by huge quantities of fertilizers poured into the sea”.
This will be one of the themes that the two ocean navigators, MareVivo ambassadors, will be able to tell when they return to Italy.
RSS – Posts