Ocean 1999 – The lost adventure of the Amoretti brothers: the Atlantic by car

Four boys, an ’87 Volkswagen Passat and an ’81 Ford Taunus, an incredible family affair behind them, the ocean. This is the story of brothers Marco, Mauro and Fabio Amoretti, who, in the company of Marcolino De Candia, embarked on an unprecedented adventure as they traveled the stretch of sea between La Palma (the Isla Bonita of the Canary Islands) and Martinique in their two cars filled with polyurethane foam.

A FORGOTTEN HISTORY

A forgotten story, not thoroughly understood by the press and media seventeen years ago, which took care to present the enterprise as a modern Odyssey, amid sharks, whales, and hurricanes. The Amoretti brothers are the sons of Giorgio, a photojournalist, an out-of-the-box personality: provocateur, staunch defender of causes, free spirit. Giorgio attempted an ocean crossing in 1978 aboard what he called the “Automare,” a Volkswagen Beetle full of Styrofoam, but was immediately stopped by Spanish authorities. In 1999, he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor. The three sons and Marcolino, a close family friend, set to work hard. Giorgio may have his days numbered, and the boys want to give him a dream: to cross the Atlantic aboard two “Automare” with them.

But George proves too weak to participate in the venture. It is May 4, ’99, the first rays of the sun light up the polished obsidian of La Palma: four curious individuals (very young, apart from Fabio, more than 30 years old, the son of Giorgio’s union with his first partner Lucia Morellato), after filling Passat and Taunus with styrofoam, provisions, and instrumentation, and equipping them with a life raft on the roof, launch these equally curious boats. It is dawn, a time chosen by the autonauts to avoid the Civil Guard. The cars continue propelled by two outboards until they run out of gas. The boys do not think twice:they detach the engines and watch them disappear into the depths of the ocean. The “engine” as of now is supposed to be an ascending parachute (another of Amoretti senior’s pet projects), but the unstable, light winds of the first few days of self-navigation make it unusable. Much better are a pair of sails, remedied from who knows which club in the Levante Ligure, mounted in a charlatan fashion on the roofs of cars by Marcolino De Candia. The two machines end up recalling, albeit vaguely, the Zodiac sailing dinghy “Hérétique,” on which French physicist Alain Bombard made a solo crossing from the Canary Islands to Barbados, drinking controlled amounts of water and juice from fish he caught. A volunteer castaway, back in 1952, to prove the theory that after a shipwreck people die more from despair than from hardship. Meanwhile, after 10 days of breezes, the currents keep the autonauts just a few miles off the Spanish coast, causing them to go in circles.

Fabio and Mauro decide to throw in the towel on May 14. Seasickness, morale under their shoes and perhaps the knowledge that they were in an environment alien to them: they were brought ashore by the Tenerife helicopter. Marco and Marcolino, on the other hand, aboard a car on the ocean, have a great time. At sea they are free, free from the constraints of an increasingly competitive and materialistic society, a society in which they have always struggled to recognize themselves. All is well until May 25, when they break contact with land. The Imarsat satellite phone goes off, perhaps due to contact with water (“we take on water from the front seat!” Amoretti writes in the logbook), or the lack of sunlight, which powers the photovoltaic batteries (only clean energy “on board”). The two seem to have disappeared into thin air. Marco Amoretti, 23, and Marco De Candia, 21, may have come to a bad end. “Silence from the Atlantic,” headlines the Secolo XIX, and all of Sarzana (where the Amoretti have settled) finds itself in turmoil. In fact, the boys are doing great; they are in perfect harmony. Marco writes, Marcolino meditates.

Meanwhile, on May 28, Giorgio Amoretti died, and when Imarsat started up again on July 5, Serenella Vianello (mother of Marco and Mauro, Giorgio’s second partner) decided not to say anything to Marco, afraid that the news would cause him a psychological blow. Machines prove to be relatively safe means, Neptune is magnanimous and oceanic depressions (including Hurricane Emily) spare the boys. Another parallel with Alain Bombard, which after 53 days at sea crossed the British ship Arakaka, is urgently needed: Amoretti and De Candia meet by chance the Chevron Atlantic tanker, whose captain proves generous and throws overboard numerous supplies retrieved by Marco by swimming.

They are on their 108th day in the ocean, and the sighting of the ship suggests that land is near. Meanwhile, Fabio, Mauro and Serenella arrived in the Antilles to arrange for the arrival of the cars. They fly over the stretch of sea off Martinique, taking the incredulous journalists with them: the two Dantesque madmen are making it, they are one step closer to the finish line. In a radio contact, Serenella decides to reveal her father’s death to Marco, to spare the boy a terrible disappointment on the ground. Arriving in Port Tartane on August 31, after 119 days at sea, the autonauts are welcomed as heroes by the Italian and foreign media.

Then, the darkness. Too many things disliked. Too many uncomfortable things to admit: it was possible to cross the Ocean almost for fun, with rickety cars. They had succeeded in doing so by two guys totally unrelated to the world of solo sailing, lacking nautical knowledge, technical means and sponsors, moreover, shortly after Giovanni Soldini’s victory at Around Alone. The local Ligurian press was the only one to play on this contrast between antithetical ways of experiencing the sea, because both Soldini and the Amoretti family had ties to Sarzana. Today, more than a decade later, the images of the unusual journey continue to excite.If after two decades we can already be considered posterity, then yes, it was true glory. (E.R.)

THE EIGHT-POINT AUTOMARE
On the right we have reconstructed with a sketch, based on the photos and descriptions of the protagonists (of preliminary plans on paper not a single shadow, in perfect line with the do-it-yourself spirit of the enterprise), a Amorettian Automare. Visible are: Ascending parachute. Never used in the crossing; Inmarsat satellite phone antenna, very expensive in 1999; Makeshift sail to maintain buoyancy (at sea, Marco De Candia hoisted more than one); Life raft used as a bunk; Solar panels (alternatively placed inside attached to windshield); Trunk entirely occupied by provisions and water tanks; Floating anchor to keep car from spinning on itself; Interior of car almost totally filled with polyurethane foam.