Chapter 11 of the book, The Voyage of The Aegre, is all about the TransAtlantic passage.
Departing from the Canary Islands, we headed southwest to pick up the NE Trade Wind, then headed west to make a landfall on Barbados, 44 days later.
Being a little early in the season, the Trade Wind was fickle, and over the passage we had a mixture of strong following winds and head winds, and complete calm. For the full story of how the squaresail performed, later being becalmed in the path of supertankers, and how we fared on this longest passage so far, see the book. But here are a few extra photos we couldn’t include.
When writing the book, long after making this passage, I thought about the many early voyagers in small boats who had crossed these same waters. Some are well known; Slocum, E F Knight and so on, but others less so. For instance in 1880, Italians Vincenzo Fondacaro from Bagnara Calabra, along with Orlando Grassoni from Ancona and Pietro Troccoli from Camerota, who had all emigrated to Uruguay, completed an amazing Atlantic crossing, inspired by a deep love of their country. They built and sailed a 10 metre flush decked schooner, Il Leone di Caprera, from Montevideo to the Canary Islands, then on into the Mediterranean aiming for Italy, but ran out of money in Malaga, Southern Spain. It’s an epic story of individual determination, Italian nationalism, and instutional rivalry and disinterest, that continues today.
There’s an interesting summary of the story on the website of Studio Faggioni Yacht Design who were involved in the restoration of the vessel.
I learnt about it all when I came across the partially restored schooner and the story in Milan’s Science and Technolgy Museum (Museo Nazionale Scienza e Technologia Leonardon Da Vinci) in 2018. However searchng online (in 2024) it doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Back in 2018 I took a few photos of the vessel and the display:
Online the story of thge voyage and the restoration seems best told in the links below.
- The story of Il Leone di Caprera
- The Lion of Caprera ‘Yesterday’.
- The restoration of the Lion of Caprera
- The Lion of Caprera in Milan for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy
- The Lion of Caprera returns to Milan
- The museum launch, Livorno 9 June 1881 – 9 June 2009
- The Polytechnic of Milan joins ARIE for the restoration of the Lion of Caprera and FIV gives its patronage
Sorry, that’s nothing to do with The Aegre voyage, but for lovers of sea stories I think it’s interesting, and little known outside Italy. I found it remarkable to see the boat built in 1890 and still in an apparently largely unrestored state, despite the restoration efforts detailed in the above links, as shown in my photos.
Back to the List of Chapter Notes.
If you haven’t read the book, here are details of how you an get a copy in paperback, eBook or audiobook.
