“No one used to take me seriously, but now I have 5,000 solo miles on my back.”

Two circumnavigations of Italy and finally Barcelona-Pesaro non-stop solo, this is the short but intense story of more than 5,000 miles sailed aboard her Mini 6.50 that Elisabetta Maffei, better known on the web as the face of “25nodi.” wrote for us offhand as soon as she returned from her adventure at sea. A story not without its “stumbles” and disillusions. But Elizabeth, who initially made a few missteps dictated by inexperience, has been able to treasure the disappointments as well, and now, after many miles at sea, she is ready to challenge herself again. Because in the end, his is a story of passion.

HOW ELISABETTA MAFFEI’S ADVENTURE ON THE MINI WAS BORN.

“In 2017 I was thinking about some new adventure for 25nodes, and at that time I was getting a lot of news about the world of ocean sailing. So I had thought of contacting some of these ocean sailors for some boarding together.

I had absolutely no intention of venturing into the ocean, but only to tell something interesting, about what is done aboard these boats, how navigation is handled, etc., and the skipper on his part, would have visibility for his projects, and for possible sponsors.

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Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, no one was taking me seriously, some were really snubbing me, and so, not being a person who gives up easily, I was looking hard for a solution. One evening strolling along the harbor, the answer comes to me: it was there illuminated by a street lamp; there was a Mini 6.50 on a reservoir!

I immediately thought, “That’s a Mini! With that you go to the ocean! You want to see me go there!?”

So I worked to figure out what I should do; I was making a lot of calls but not getting clear answers, they all just said, “but it’s hard, but you’ve never gone on a mini, I don’t know if it’s right for you ….” I mean, in the end the only thing I understood was that I had to buy a Mini (later I found out that you can also rent them).

Continuing my research and requests for info left and right, just as I was on board with some people from Il Giornale della Vela, they tell me that there was a good mini owned by a certain Ambrogio Beccaria (the first Italian, in 2019, to win the Mini Transat, twice Sailor of the Year!), that was for sale. So I call him and stop his boat.

Within 6 months of my decision, I had purchased a boat and moved to France to prepare as best I could.

Those who sail know that boats have souls, and that boat just didn’t want to be mine. In the meantime, I was getting some tempting proposals from a new all-Italian shipyard, so I was able to resell my old boat, and launch myself “into the dark” of a project that until then had only been done on paper.

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I am an entrepreneur, and the motto “no risk, no reward” resonates quite strongly with me, so despite the myriad uncertainties behind a completely new project, I had nevertheless decided to “take a chance.” I was very stimulated by the fact that there were people behind this project who had a goal, a dream, and who were investing all their energy to create something. It almost felt like we were speaking the same language.

Obviously, the difficulties in having the first boat from a boatyard were not few, and I have to say a super thank you to the shore team in Pesaro and the shore team in Muggia with whom we rigged the boat, made improvements and fine-tuned several things.

HOW COME TWO TOURS OF ITALY?

They were real transfers, although then I always try to put the “enjoyment” part of the sailing side by side; I took the opportunity to see the beautiful Italian coasts, the different cultures in the various regions, and above all to eat the delicacies that our cuisine offers us.

The 1st round was from Livorno to Pesaro. I had gone to Tuscany to start the Mini regatta circuit. Unfortunately, however, it was my fourth time on my boat, I didn’t know it well, and we arrived an hour out of maximum time, even with a black eye … I had a fight with Bigio, my pilot.

A number of things, including greatly overrun budget, boat to finish testing and fixing some things that were breaking down, led me to the tough decision to stop there and take things more slowly. (It took me 4 days to digest this decision made.)

The 2nd tour of Italy, on the other hand, was from Trieste to Genoa. I was in Trieste for a presentation, and with the occasion we took the opportunity to make many improvements to the boat together with the super shore team from Muggia. After that, in mid-January, I left at full speed to arrive in time for the scheduled training in Genoa in mid-February. It was quite an adventure … especially the 3 nights off between Brindisi and the Strait of Messina due to a drop in batteries and then a navigation where I had neither pilot nor way lights, nor instrumentation to be seen by the ships … I fell asleep at the helm and when the sails flapped I woke up, luckily there was very little wind and so it was quite “easy,” after which, like a godsend, near the Strait of Messina I managed to find a tow from a sailboat that was on the same route as me, and that kindly took me all the way to Reggio Calabria where then, I was joined by another guy and together we managed to get everything sorted out.

Even the last 150miles from Argentario to Genoa were quite “extreme,” I did more than 20hours at the helm, I still did not have the instruments set up properly for the pilot to helm at full speed (13-15nodes) with gennaker, and once I arrived in Genoa, with the gale coming up behind me, at 2am, when you can’t wait to rest and warm up, I find out that I had the wrong port!

Just to give you the idea, I was doing 11 knots with white trimmed sails, and getting out to sea to head to the correct port was quite a stretch that I had to force myself to do in order to get better rest for the next few days without having to move the boat further. At the entrance to the Marinda in Genoa, I also risked going to the rocks. Basically there is a “curved” entrance, and in the night, with fatigue, salt-stained glasses and the Navionics not opening for me because the touch screen of the cell phone with wet fingers doesn’t pick up, (I was even asking Siri to open it but it wouldn’t listen to me), after the 2nd red light I was pulling straight onto the rocks; fortunately after a while I was able to see the 3rd red light and resume the correct entrance route.

BARCELONA-PESARO,

18 DAYS AND 1,500 MILES SOLO

In mid-July I had left Rome to go to do the Mini circuit races in Spain, and thus begin to total up these blessed miles needed for the Mini-Transat. However, once I got there, 2 days after I landed, they informed me that the regatta had been cancelled because of Covid. So the options in my head were 2, either to leave the boat there, with the risk that they would close the borders with the various consequences, or to return home with the boat, asking the Mini Class for the okay to accumulate the 1000miles non-stop solo, also necessary to be eligible for the Mini-Transat.

Yes, it was a fairly relaxing 18days, a walk in the park compared to the 2 periples of Italy; probably because I didn’t have a deadline to meet, and even the weather was always fairly forgiving, although I did most of the miles upwind, with a boat that was not born for upwind 🙂 My biggest worry was when I approached the African coast, I was afraid of encountering migrant barges, or even worse, those who commission these barges. And my fears were confirmed by the talk I was hearing on the Vhf, from financial guards who said that two people had tried to board a dinghy of tourists, and from a fisherman, who had found one of these boats abandoned in the middle of the sea with people on it and set out to tow it, and over and over again he was asking the authorities what he should do. It was a touching moment, hard to describe, because when you are at home you think one way, then when you are there you live the human side of the situation, you understand that there are really people, poor wretches who are abandoned there in the middle of the sea …

However, once I arrived near the coast of Sicily, I breathed a sigh of relief even though I struggled a bit at night with the constant straining under gennaker. It was among the few good wind days, and I wanted to take full advantage of it, so I had to arrange to be able to keep the gennaker up and also get my pilot to be able to helm so that I could rest for at least 15minutes…. nothing, I had to wait for the wind to drop to collapse tiredly in the cockpit.

Once I arrived in Leuca, I already began to feel at home, and it is always when you say “I’m almost there” that the problems begin. At 20miles from Brindisi in trying the various pilot settings, I had accidentally clicked “reset autopilot.” At that moment my world collapsed on me; without a pilot everything becomes definitely more difficult, you can’t go to the bow to change sails, sleep, eat, etc….. so I went to the hood and calmly reading the instructions well, I was able to roughly reset the pilot all the way home.

ELIZABETH MAFFEI’S PROGRAMS

After the 2019 Mini-Transat was skipped for me, and with the arrival of the Covid I started to take everything more philosophically, “it comes what it has to come, it’s useless to force things that you crash later.” Also because for now my Main Sponsor 25nodi has given me a budget brake 🙂

Joking aside, despite the fact that I still haven’t done anything, or almost anything from the Mini program, my sponsors can boast of having over 200,000 views in my YouTube videos, plus all the visibility between posts, photos, Facebook and Instagram stories.

Let’s say that still the hull and sails are shining a beautiful white, and waiting to be colored by sponsors willing to come aboard in 25nodes’ adventures.

Special thanks go to my current sponsors (Solbian, Veneziani Yachting, Facnor, The Portolano777, Cruises in Pullmann, Big Luca, AdriaSail, Xanitalia, Unifarco, Welcome Sails, Volpini, Eurovinil, Wind Design, Novelli Boatyard, and the Rossini Boatyard in Pesaro. A superrrr special thanks also goes to all the fans who support me to help thanks to crowfounding on
https://www.gofundme.com/f/25nodi
and to the super shore tem from Pesaro and especially Muggia, who support and help me in the most difficult moments.

Online, on my YouTube channel 25nodes
http://youtube.com/25nodi
there is the Mini-Transat Playlist where you can see the whole story, from the old boat, to the construction of the new one and the sailings aboard the Mini.” Elisabetta Maffei

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