The sailor has always been committed to raising awareness for the protection of the planet, but the war in Ukraine has blocked his latest initiative
Pierfrancesco Catucci
May 31
“If we want to survive on this planet, we have to change our attitude. And since we are not doing it, or in any case we are not doing it enough, the problems will come out quickly ”. Giovanni Soldini he is not one who loves words. He is a sailor and, when you are alone in the middle of the sea, you cannot afford to procrastinate. You have to know what you want, how to get it and go and get it without wasting unnecessary time.
we are killing the sea
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And the sea is one of the mirrors of how man is slowly destroying planet Earth. “With Maserati Multi 70 (his boat, ed) – he says – we did two world tours in recent years and we have had dozens of impacts with floating objects, often fishing litter. The sea is considered by man to be an infinite environment and without owners and for this reason used as a landfill and as an unlimited source of fish resources and so on we are killing him“. The word “killing”, better than any other, reflects the human dimension ratio that Soldini has with the sea that sails. And there are many initiatives to raise awareness of his safeguard.
the initiative blocked by the war
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The latest is the one stopped in the last weeks by the war between Russia and Ukraine that led to the closure of the route by the Russians (only Russian ships can pass). “The idea – explains Soldini – was that of make the transition to the Northeast (the naval route which, starting from the North Sea, continues in the Arctic Ocean along the coast of Siberia and, through the Bering Strait and the Bering Sea, reaches the Pacific Ocean, ed) for demonstrate how vast is the melting of the ice in that area. Until a few years ago, to get through there you had to have an ice pick and in recent years the ice has shrunk so much that you can even go through a boat like mine, made with a 1.5 mm carbon skin “. All with theOcean Pack on board, a machine in the belly of the hull that draws sea water through the boat’s engine socket and analyzes it. Because safeguarding presupposes knowledge. In addition to the love for what you do.
the rescue of isabelle
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A love so great that it put everything on the line to go and save a colleague who had overturned the sea. It was February 1999 and it will remain one of Giovanni Soldini’s greatest (human) enterprises. During the Around Alone (the solo round the world in stages on a sailing boat) he changed course to go to save the French Isabelle Autissier who had capsized in the South Pacific during the third stage, from Auckland in New Zealand to Punta del Este in Uruguay, and far from possible rescue operations. “On that occasion I was lucky enough to find it, which is not so obvious in those parts because the sea and the horizon are very gray and, even if you have the position (which in any case is approximate), it can happen that you pass by and not see the boat “. But he found her and saved her life.
beat yesterday
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Which, in fact, is the spirit Beat Yesterday, a project promoted by Garmin, the leading company in the production of sports (mainly wrist) and navigation devices, of which Soldini has been a testimonial for some time. The goal is to celebrate the little big successes of sports amateurs who get involved (send your application here), sacrificing time and energy, to succeed in something that most people define as impossible.
May 31, 2022 (change May 31, 2022 | 10:52 am)
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