They scuff 180° with the cat in the Atlantic: they straighten up and go again! This is how they did it

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ocean-cat
Tullio Picciolini and Giammarco Sardi capsized their 20-foot Ocean Cat 180° in the middle of the Ocean
, 750 miles from the Caribbean, during their record attempt on the Dakar-Guadalupa route. This is a very difficult situation to resolve, because catamaran hulls do not have ideal points for body leverage, and the width of the boat makes it almost impossible to right it. But they succeeded and started again. How did they do it? (cover photo by Andrea Falcon)

In the diagram we have reconstructed the artisanal straightening system of Ocean Cat probably used by Picciolini and Sardi: the two thus avoided abandoning the boat in the Ocean

MALINGRI’S HYPOTHESIS
Vittorio Malingri, the current record holder and “person of interest” since he is the former owner of Picciolini and Sardi’s cat explains: “The righting system I had devised on the catamaran consists of a tube, pivoted exactly under the mast, which normally lies folded under the trampoline and sticks out of the stern. When you capsize, you can deploy this tube and steer it away from the mast (thus out of the water) at an angle of about 45°, securing it on either hull with a small backstay or hoist system.

So just climb on it to increase leverage. In our crossing, we had also set up a 200-liter, keg-sized bag (which is valid both as a floating anchor and as a “container” by closing the top of the funnel). You lower it into the water through a hoist, from the pipe, which becomes like the bucket of a crane, and start pulling up the bag. Surely they must have climbed the pipe and used the bag full of water as well! I was not on board, but this is the only way to cheer up!“.

Tullio Picciolini and Giammarco Sardi are trying to break the record on the Dakar-Guadalupa route with the 20-foot (6-meter) uninhabitable catamaran Ocean Cat. (E.R. and M.G.).

THE HISTORY OF THE RECORD
Dakar-Guadeloupe is the route approved by the Speed Record Council of World Sailing, the international sailing federation, for the unassisted Atlantic crossing record of a two-person crew aboard a 20-foot (6-meter) uninhabitable sport catamaran. The current record, set by Italians Vittorio and Nico Malingri, is 11 days 1 hour 9 minutes and 30 seconds, 10 hours better than the previous record set by Frenchmen Pierre-Yves Moreau and Benoit Lequin and crew Miceli-Gancia. In 2011, the Miceli-Picciolini pair attempted to break the French record aboard “Black Blondie,” sinking when the catamaran capsized and the mast broke.

FOLLOW TULLIO AND GIAMMARCO HERE

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