Story of the ARCI club that rescues migrants with two sailboats

With two sailboats and a base of only thirty members, Italy’s first sailing Circolo Arci has launched its first experience in monitoring and rescuing migrant routes in the Mediterranean.

Witness what happens along the invisible and dangerous routes of migrants arriving in the central Mediterranean, document the work of rescue organizations active at sea and if necessary save lives. This is the goal of “All Eyes on the Mediterranean,” the project of Italy’s first sailing Circolo Arci.

It was conceived by Francesco Delli Santi, 57, from Bologna, an architect as well as a sailor, who is the owner of a sailboat that rescued 43 people off the coast of Lampedusa, Sicily, last November. The boat is called “Sailingfor Blue Lab” and is also one of the two operational vessels of the sailing Circolo Arci (the other is a 17-meter sailboat).

Everyone can join and participate in actions at sea

For the time being, there are about 30 members of the association, all sailors with a lifelong connection to the sea, who are also oriented toward social innovation, human rights advocacy and marine environmental protection. Many of them also have experience in Search and Rescue (Sar) activities with rescue vessels of different organizations,

But anyone has the opportunity to join. To support it, one can do activities ashore, such as classic self-funding dinners, but one can also enlist as a volunteer for sea operations. “With the sailing club we are carrying out the ‘All Eyes on the Mediterranean’ project,” explains Filippo Miraglia, Arci’s immigration manager, “and we want to carry out sea monitoring in Lampedusa. It is a way of reaffirming the centrality of people who cannot be sacrificed to mere propaganda.”

“With sailing we get around the Piantedosi Decree.”

Theoretically, the main purpose of the Circolo Arci navigante is to report shipwrecked people and provide first aid. “But what may happen is what already happened in November,” Miraglia continued, “which is that the ship of desperate people is in danger of sinking and therefore it is necessary to take them all on board. The boats available to the club are two, one 13 meters and the other 17 meters.

There is another aspect that is not insignificant: “The sailboat,” Miraglia explains, “makes it possible to circumvent one of the effects of the recent Piantedosi Decree on sea rescue operations. That is, the fact that NGO ships after each rescue are sent to ports far from the central Mediterranean. Sailboats are in fact forced to return to a much closer port. And against that there is little to be said.”

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