BarcelonaFor centuries they were feared waters for any sailor. It has never been easy to navigate Cape horn, the southernmost point of the American continent, or the coast of Patagonia. Now, two Catalan sailors, Dídac Costa and Guillermo Cañardo, are preparing to sail along the Chilean coast to the south of patagonia in an unprecedented journey in world sailing, as they will make a journey of more than 1,500 nautical miles (2,780 kilometers) with a Catalan sailboat: the typical vessel of our coasts that does not have a rudder. A small craft that will face a challenge that has never been seen before.
“We want to reconnect with a way of sailing that seems lost. Today, technology has allowed us to make a lot of progress and gain safety, but at the same time it causes the essence of sailing to be lost. We want to reconnect with sensations we had in our beginnings, which is a pure adventure and a challenge”, explains Costa, one of the best catalan sailors, as he is one of the 22 humans who have twice completed the Vendée Globe, the round the world sailing solo and without stairs “It’s a simple project: with a sailboat and going down the coast.At the same time, it’s a giant project because of the challenge. We’ll leave Puerto Montt and during the journey to Port Williams we’ll only find a port to rest. We’ll spend the nights on land with a tent,” he explains.
The sailboat is a small boat, without a cabin, without an engine and without a rudder.A boat born on the beaches of Catalonia more than a century ago with two parallel floats, a platform on top and a single sail. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of sailing to be able to defend yourself above, especially in tricky waters, as the course is governed solely by the movement of the body on the deck and the trim of the sail. Cañardo and Costa have been preparing with experiences like last summer, when they went from Barcelona to Menorca, a 30-hour trip. It had never been done with a sail skate.
“Now we face this challenge with a boat designed and thought for coastal navigation, but we will take it to Chilean Patagonia, a wild place, and sail for more than two months. we will bring all the equipment necessary to live in the open air and try to culminate the adventure at the legendary Cap d’Hornos,” explains Cañardo. “We found out that someone had bought some sail skates in Chile, so contacting them made it easier to organize it, since we didn’t have to send the boats there,” says Costa. “We face this challenge with two skates. Each on board a skate. But it is a team challenge, since we share the preparation and the spirit of adventure,” he adds.
During the journey they will navigate through inland channels that allow them to be more protected from the Pacific Ocean, sailing between five and eight hours each day between islands, glaciers and snowy peaks that drop steeply into the sea. “It’s a natural labyrinth full of iconic places, an almost uninhabited area. Quite a challenge for us,” he adds. The water temperature will be very low, around eight degrees, and it will be cold even though it will be during the southern summer. “We’ll bring freeze-dried food and we’ll have easy access to natural water. We’re worried about sections outside canals, about currents and winds; we’ll have to wait for“`html
