Sailing through the wildest waters with a Catalan sailing dinghy

BarcelonaFor centuries, these waters were feared by any navigator. Sailing around Cape Horn, the southernmost point of the American continent, or along the coast of Patagonia has never been easy. Now, two Catalan sailors, Dídac Costa and Guillermo Cañardo, are preparing to sail along the Chilean coast to southern Patagonia on a voyage unprecedented in the world of sailing. They will cover more than 1,500 nautical miles (2,780 kilometers) in a traditional sailing dinghy: the Catalan sailing dinghy. This small vessel will face a challenge unlike any seen before.

"We want to reconnect with a way of sailing that seems lost. Today, technology has allowed us to advance a lot and gain safety, but at the same time, it makes us lose the essence of sailing. We want to reconnect with the feelings we had in our beginnings, for it to be a pure adventure and a challenge," explains Cuesta, who have completed the Vendée Globe twice, the solo, non-stop round-the-world sailing race. "It's a simple project: with a sailing dinghy, sailing down the coast. At the same time, it's a huge project because of the challenge. We'll depart from Puerto Montt, and along the way to Port Williams, we'll only find one port where we can rest. We'll spend the nights on the ground in a tent," he explains.

The catamaran is a small boat, without a cabin, engine, or rudder. It originated on the beaches of Catalonia over a century ago, with two parallel floats, a platform on top, and a single sail. It seems simple, but you need considerable sailing experience to navigate it, especially in challenging waters, as the course is controlled solely by body movement on deck and sail trim. Cañardo and Costa have been preparing themselves with experiences like last summer's 30-hour trip from Barcelona to Menorca. This journey had never been undertaken before in a catamaran.

"Now we're taking on this challenge with a boat designed and built for coastal navigation, but we'll be taking it to Chilean Patagonia, a wild place, and sailing for more than two months. We'll be carrying all the necessary equipment for living outdoors and will try to culminate the adventure at the legendary Cape Horn. "We discovered that someone had bought some sailing catamarans in Chile, so contacting them made it easier to organize, since we didn't have to ship the boats there," says Costa. "We're tackling this challenge with two catamarans. Each of us on board one." But it's a team challenge, since we share the preparation and the spirit of adventure," he adds.

During the journey, they will navigate through inland channels that offer greater protection from the Pacific Ocean, sailing between five and eight hours each day among islands, glaciers, and snow-capped peaks that plunge into the sea. "It's a natural labyrinth full of iconic places, an almost uninhabited area. Quite a challenge for us," he adds. The water temperature will be very low, around eight degrees Celsius, and it will be cold even though it will be during the austral summer. "We will carry freeze-dried food and have easy access to fresh water. We are concerned about the stretches outside the channels, due to the currents and winds; we will have to wait for the crucial moments." “We need to have a lot of autonomy to anticipate bad weather,” Costa explains. The idea is to spend about two months sailing and set sail on New Year’s Eve. After Christmas, they fly to Chile, where they will spend New Year’s before departing after midnight, after months of negotiating sailing permits with the Chilean Navy; negotiations that haven’t been easy, since a vessel like a sailing catamaran has never undertaken this adventure before. To make this challenge possible, Costa and Cañardo rearranged their schedules as best they could. Costa is a firefighter by profession and took advantage of his breaks and vacations, while Cañardo, a doctor, requested leave from the Emergency Medical Service at Joan XXIII Hospital in Tarragona, where he works. All to make a dream come true that will make them pioneers. And it gave them memories they will never forget.