Away from the spotlight, all aimed at Maserati and Giovanni Soldini, first across the finish line (with record) at the RORC Caribbean in Antigua (and on theadventure of Tullio Picciolini and Giammarco Sardi, who just completed their record attempt between Dakar and Guadeloupe on an uninhabitable cat), c‘is another sailor who has completed his great little feat.
DAN’S SENSE FOR THE OCEAN
His name is Dan Lenard, and he is most famous as a designer, as he co-founded, along with Carlo Nuvolari, the Nuvolari Lenard ship design firm. That great Italian excellence that has put its signature on the most avant-garde megayachts, from Perini to Oceanco, from Palmer Johnson to Ferretti.
His sailing skills were unknown to most (although, those who know him well, know that he spent his youth in the Adriatic between Lasers and Flying Juniors), but he proved them by sailing solo with no engine, no instruments, no compass or sextant (just like the ancient navigators) from Cadiz, where he left on Jan. 20, to Antigua (where he arrived yesterday), nearly 4,000 miles following the route of Christopher Columbus’ second voyage to the Indies.
“You will know where I will be, I won’t,” he had joked before setting sail, having just a transponder available to send his position to those following him. Then just the sight of it, the sun, the stars and the clock.
FRANKENSTEIN BOAT
“I wonder what space boat the king of superyachts must have designed himself to attempt this feat,” someone had wondered. Instead. Instead, Lenard cast off his moorings aboard Scia, a 33-footer (10 meters) that we called a “Frankenstein boat” because it was made by recycling parts from other boats.
He had described it to us like this, “A patchwork of pieces from previous boats, the ‘newest’ one is eight years old. We recycled parts from boats in different states of construction, mated hull and deck from different 10-year-old boats, the mast is from a Bavaria Match 35, the rudder is from another boat. To create it, we used 100 kilograms of resin for the various couplings. Then with our work as designers we thought about giving it an aesthetically acceptable form.” And he had joked, “It cost us less than a Figaro!”
ECO-IMPRISE
Her goal was to reach the coast of Florida for the Miami Boat Show (Feb. 14-18), but due to light winds she didn’t make it for a few days (she is now stationary in Antigua and we don’t know when she will resume sailing). He certainly wasn’t chasing any records: he didn’t communicate anything to anyone, he started quietly, hush-hush. He did so to promote the beauty of sailing as an “eco” zero-impact way of travel, as well as to draw attention to the need for immediate and concrete action to protect the sea.
Well done Dan, we are promoting you to field ambassador for Medplastic (the project we launched to protect the Mediterranean) and we look forward to having you tell us about your adventure!!!
HERE WE HAD INTRODUCED YOU TO DAN LENARD’S ADVENTURE
DISCOVER ALL MEDPLASTIC-THEMED NEWS
TIME TO ACT.
Time to Take Action is the slogan of Medplastic, the project of the Journal of Sailing and Powerboats to safeguard the Mediterranean. Join the MedPlastic Team Facebook group, there you can post news, projects, photodenunciations, videos. In addition, if you have structured projects to propose that you think would be useful to the “cause,” please send an email to savethemed@gmail.com. www.medplastic.org
