March 1, 2019
Not a record, but …
The Italians Jiammarco Sardi and Tullio Piccolini crossed the Atlantic on a catamaran, to which they gave the proud name Ocean Cat.
In fact, it is a 6-meter apparatus for coastal racing.
Sardi and Piccolini started from Dakar (Senegal) in western Africa, and finished in Pointe-a-Pitre on Guadeloupe Island in the eastern Caribbean. They covered a distance of about 2,900 nautical miles in 14 days, 3 hours and 40 minutes.
This is not a record at all. Two years ago, other Italians – Niko and Vittorio Malinri, father and son – overcame the same distance on a similar catamaran much faster – in 11 days, 1 hour and 9 minutes.
And yet the transatlantic odyssey of Sardi and Piccolini deserves to be briefly told about it. Because it took place in the most difficult conditions. The meteorological forecast, which the Italians believed, did not come true, all two weeks the storm followed the storm, the wind speed sometimes exceeded 40 knots, and the waves were more than six meters. As a result, for two weeks they hardly slept. And by the end of the second day, both began to pursue hallucinations.
Plus, Ocean Cat rolled over three times – on the 5th, 9th and 12th day. Yeah, travelers drank goblin It is not surprising that when the catamaran finally finished in Pointe-a-Pitre, Giammarco Sardi began a conversation with journalists with the phrase:
– I feel crushed. The weather has caused us monstrous problems. Of course, we expected to face difficulties, but we could not even imagine that we would have to go through this …
In general, the madness of the brave, we sing a song. And all is well that ends well.
436 March 1, 2019 # 8830
Chief Editor
