Sunday, May 10, 2020

Sailing around the world solo by roaring forties with Alain Kalita

Alain Kalita tried three times to the World Tour nonstop.
The third is good.
Despite the downturn in Naila will remain 40 minutes keel air and forced stopover in New Zealand that follows, Alain hit the road for the loop around Cape Horn and go to the end of his dream. 


"From an early age, the sea, the horizon and the boats captured my attention.
At the age of 14, reading Bernard Moitessier's La Longue Route was a revelation.
The odyssey of his single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the world anchored this project, this dream of a summit in my life.
The dream had to be built, starting with the boat.
So I learned the boilermaker's trade, the beginning of my fulfillment.
At the age of 20, I started to build Naïla (9.5 m), without having enough money to buy all the sheet metal, convinced that a dream must live on, otherwise it would be sclerotic.
Naïla asked me for four years of work, sheet after sheet, weld after weld.
Week-ends, holidays and evenings, he asked me for everything, I gave him everything.
Sometimes, an old school friend would come to see me with his girlfriend, his first child.
Then I thought of the sweet warmth of the home; nevertheless, I returned to my priesthood praying to keep the faith.
At the age of 25, in September 1988, I set out on my solo, non-stop, round-the-world trip.
No GPS, no emergency beacon, no radio, no means of communication with land, no experience of the sea. I was setting off into the unknown, I had the nerve of youth."

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