Ambrogio Fogar: adventure is adventure.

My adventure in discovering Ambrogio Fogar begins as I least expected. “My father was an ordinary man and he made mistakes.” This was said by Francesca, the daughter of the great Milanese explorer, on a late January afternoon. Sitting like old friends on the couch at home, Francesca is a flood of anecdotes, stories, behind-the-scenes of an even private Fogar, far from the spotlight. He who, for those like me who were elementary school kids in the 1980s, was more of a showman than a traveler. We would sit in front of the TV waiting for the unmistakable music of “Jonathan,” the program he conceived and hosted, which pioneered a new way of reporting on nature. And the adventure.

THAT UNHEALTHY IDEA OF BEING INVINCIBLE
“You almost thought he was a Piero Angela, a presenter,” Francesca smiles. “But he had an adventurous spirit inherent in him.” Of course, though, going from being an insurance agent to sailing around the world alone is quite a leap…. “It was actually more something used by the press than actual. My dad had adventure in his DNA, kind of like all kids do. He did not quell this instinct as he grew up, because it was what he loved to do, it was how he wanted to live life, both from a point of view of excitement, adrenaline, guasiness, courage, but also because of the confrontation with nature. That confrontation that leads you to carry out real soul-searching. it is true that he studied political science, but his insurance career began more at the behest of his father. He did not feel like it: he went to the office once a week, picked up and left to ride everywhere. He kind of cared. His fixation was to be able to make a living and work from what he loved to do.” Adventure in DNA, then. Pursued from a young age: at eighteen he crossed the Alps on skis, made dozens of parachute jumps. Few people know this, but it was during one of these jumps, as soon as he finished his military service, that he came close to death for the first time: “His parachute opened wrongly and he went down at 100 mph. In the crash he broke practically every bone in his body, his teeth…. He was alive by a miracle. And this perhaps somehow instilled in him the unhealthy idea that he was immortal. When he woke up in the hospital, the first thing he did was to try to get up and walk, because he was terrified at the idea of being paralyzed, of not being able to move out of bed.” I remain speechless for a moment, thinking of what he would then experience 30 years later…. Find the full story in the March issue of The Journal of Sailing

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USED CLASSIC BOAT | 6 Champagne-Sailing vessels, however for all (<10 m)