Ambrogio Fogar’s book that you absolutely must read half a century after his feat

Exactly fifty years ago, on December 7, 1974, Ambrogio Fogar entered history for his incredible solo round-the-world race.

On a 12-footer, the Surprise travels 37,000 miles east and west against prevailing winds and currents, braving storms, whales, and polar cold. We have told you his story here with the memories of those who knew him well.

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the feat-Ambrogio Fogar (1941-2005) was the first Italian sailor to succeed, the fifth in the world-a new edition of the book in which the Milanese insurer with a passion for exploration recounts his adventure, “400 Days Around the World”(TEA Publisher, 170 pages, 16 euros), returns to bookstores.

Portrait of Fogar “child”

A not-to-be-missed edition, because in addition to being a book-diary of an exceptional journey, contains prefaces by daughters Francesca and Rachele Fogar. Which sketch the “private,” eternal child (in its purest and most positive sense) Fogar, the one that has not been told until now.

The preface edited by Francesca begins like this:

“Bye, then I’m going,” said the boy, in which the man already overlooked the man.
” But where?” asked the rich man unprepared. businessman.
” To go around the world, ” replied the former.
Fogar is a fool, thought the second.

I have heard this story many times. It has punctuated our lives as daughters, like a giaculatoria. The chant of a curse, or the hosanna of a blessing, celebrated sometimes by sincere admiration, others boasted, to hide envy. Ambrogio Fogar’s story, however, encompasses this aspect, but is not understood by it, just as always, or almost always, it was his choices as a man that dictated the consequences and – while taking them into account, while foreseeing them – never the other way around.

It is a story that begins well before the voyage recounted in these pages, or rather, ” the tale of self, within that voyage, ” which represents the landing place, the point of arrival of a route, not only nautical, and at the same time that of departure towards a new destination. My father’s ” 400 days around the world ” begin, nominally, on November 1, 1973, half a century ago: they are the result of a quest rooted in the child Ambrose, who has to decide what to do when he grows up… ” …

From Rachel’s preface:

…A child’s gaze, I believe, recognizes in that man with the mustache and the bright smile another child who, though grown up, has kept alive the dreams, the ability to wonder and the eyes of when one is small and can ” turn everything into immensity “; Dad, as if not to run the risk of losing that invisible thread that tied him to his ” little boy “, named the boat with which he would circumnavigate the globe Surprise. This was Fogar’s great gift, seasoned with the three ” C “: courage, perseverance and stubbornness…

Why 400 Days Around the World must be read. Especially today

Rereading “400 Days Around the World” today, fifty years after that exceptional voyage, will restore an emotion that seemed lost: the pure sense of adventure of man going to sea, alone.

Today, when technology has turned sailing almost exclusively into a “performance,” Fogar’s essential, intimate, sparse narrative transports us unfiltered to the midst of the earth’s oceans and we seem to relive with him the storms and bonanzas, the wonders and terrors, the accidents and surprises, the exaltations and the chasms of discouragement; and more than that, we seem to share with him a great spiritual adventure.

As Fogar himself wrote: “I will never be able to say well what happens in the heart: the sea is always the same sea, and the sky is the same. But you seem to ‘return’ when you pass the longitude of Cape Horn. You really believe you’ve reached the top of the mountain: it’s still the same cold as a meter before, but your heart is warmer, and you seem to be One Great Man living in billions of pieces in cities all over the world; for a moment you feel grand, your boat is grand, in a grandiose powerful nature, harmonious like a symphony.”

• You can purchase the book (which, by the way, makes a perfect Christmas gift!) at this link.

(Excerpts from the prefaces and pictures courtesy of TEA Publisher)