Having left Auckland on January 11th , sailing solo without stopover towards Sanremo, Alessandro rounded Cape Horn a month later and reached the Equator today, March 11th at 10.05 UTC.
We reached him by phone to get his comments. “At the moment I’m preparing to raise the mainsail entering the trade winds, towards the archipelago of São Pedro and São Paulo, off the coast of Brazil. I was going with only the jib because with so little wind and dead waves the mainsail would have flapped and the travelers were in danger of being ruined… When I was in the South Atlantic I looked at the forecast six times a day, here I go more by instinct – I’ll have to wait until latitude 20° to define a new weather strategy and hook the winds coming from the North”.
After hooking up to the Southeast Trade Winds, Alessandro chose to cross the equatorial calms, positioning himself as best as possible to continue the Atlantic climb and avoid facing the North Trade Winds with the wind in his face.
The passage through the Doldrum * has transformed every mile gained into a real conquest “I often maneuvered to take advantage of the 3-5 knots that occasionally blow between one storm and the next. One night I took everything down and went to sleep in the cockpit under the stars, and occasionally under the rain, but I didn’t pay attention, I didn’t wear clothes and dried myself with the towel”.
The equatorial calms were anticipated by navigation all upwind of over 3,500 miles, from Buenos Aires onwards: “ The upwind becomes a pleasant travel companion, with many advantages: there are no more storms that knock you down, at most a few thunderstorms that last half an hour, the waves do not exceed two meters, the wind generator works like a god with the apparent wind that is generated – says Alessandro – I concentrated on the dynamics of the day: full mainsail, first and second hand go up and down, jib and staysail open and close… the gunwale is up to the neck in water, when it reaches the chin it was changed. I won’t tell you about the acrobatics in the kitchen… In short, everything like that, I moved like an octopus”.
The entry into the South Atlantic had followed a textbook crossing of the South Pacific : a strategy that worked and the passage of Cape Horn with a tailwind allowed him to arrive off the coast of Buenos Aires. There was also a warm welcome message from the President of the International Association of Cape Horners*, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston , winner in 1969 of the first non-stop solo round-the-world race, The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. At the end, Alessandro will be the ninth Italian to have circumnavigated the globe passing through the three capes solo sailing, after Ambrogio Fogar, Giovanni Soldini, Simone Bianchetti, Pasquale De Gregorio, Alessandro Di Benedetto, Giancarlo Pedote, Andrea Mura, Riccardo Tosetto.
Today, the passage of the Equator on Aspra’s tracker crossed with the same path in November 2023 with a South route during the Global Solo Challenge , which Alessandro had to interrupt last February due to a broken shroud. Thus the circle of Aspra’s navigation around the world is almost closing.
We look forward to welcoming Alessandro to ASPRA with the burgee of our reciprocal club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron , due to arrive in the spring.
You can always follow ASPRA tracking here: https://my.yb.tl/ASPRA
* The Doldrums or equatorial calms are formed by the clash between the trade winds of the Northern Hemisphere, which blow from the northeast, and the trade winds of the Southern Hemisphere, which blow from the southeast, resulting in a meteorologically unstable intertropical convergence zone.
** Membership of The International Association of Cape Horners is open to persons of all nationalities who have rounded Cape Horn under sail in a non-stop passage of at least 3,000 nautical miles which passes the latitude of 52° South in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and which is accomplished without the use of motors for propulsion.