SARDINIA TO TUSCANY // ACROSS THE TYRRHENIAN SEA

Matteo Iachino undertakes the toughest challenge of his life as he attempts to sail solo from Sardinia to Tuscany.

Words: Matteo Iachino

Photos:

Giovanni Tesei

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HATCHING A PLAN

One month after my crossing from Liguria to Corsica Island on a wind-foil, we met up with Stefano, the Project Manager, to discuss about our next mission for 2023. I had many ideas and projects in mind, but we needed to sit down and discuss what was possible and how to do it. After more than an hour of discussions, the idea to cross the Tyrrhenian Sea from Sardinia to the mainland came to life. The main question was – where to start and where to finish?

The crossing from Sardinia to Tuscany had already been completed before by Vittorio Serra, a Sardinian windsurfer who went from Gallura, on the northeast point of Sardinia to Piombino, situated in the middle of Tuscany, back in the 90s on his windsurf gear. It took Vittorio a week to complete and required multiple overnight stops in Corsica and then Elba Island to finally reach Piombino.

DREAMING BIG

I was dreaming about something more. I wanted to cover more distance and I wanted to complete it in one shot, in one day even, taking advantage of the modern wind-foil high performance gear and cherry picking the right day with the perfect wind and weather conditions for it. I decided I would start my journey from Golfo Aranci, a popular village in the northeast of Sardinia where the ferries to the main land have their hub, and I would cross Bonifacio, ride along Corsica and then cross to Montecristo and Elba Island to finally reach Tuscany before shooting downwind toward Livorno, which is 100km further north. I would try to finish my crossing in Tre Ponti Surf Centre, a popular Windsurfing Club located in Livorno. We calculated that this mission would be roughly 100km more than what Vittorio achieved on his old school windsurf board and I would try to do it all in one day. In total, 278km divide Golfo Aranci from Livorno point-to-point and I had no idea what I was about to try and undertake, but we knew the optimal wind would be the southeast autumnal wind, scirocco. However, Stefano was not comfortable with the distance, and he made it clear on several occasions that he thought it was too much to complete in one day, however, I was pretty sure I could do it.

PLANNING

During the beginning of 2023 everything came together. The actual plan I imagined seemed to be the best and safest way to get to Livorno. The idea was to sail close to the shore at all times, before heading to Sardinia, then Corsica, then to the little islands and Elba before reaching Tuscany itself. On paper everything looked quite nice and easy.

Tirreno Power, an Italian company, who produce energy using wind and water supported the project, which helped us to keep our belief in the mission. Yamaha Marine Italy also loved the idea and helped us together with Lomar Shipyard by supporting me with a 9m safety boat, which would allow the team consisting of – Silvio, the videographer, Giovanni, the photographer, Riccardo for the drone shots, Blanca Alabau as media manager, Valter to help out all around and Lorenzo, the owner of the shipyard and pilot of the boat – to follow me during the attempt.

HOLDING PERIOD

We looked at the calendar and set a waiting period between the 5th-25th October. During this period, we hoped we would be lucky to have a day with the ideal southeast scirocco wind, which would hit the entire north of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

As we approached October, strong south winds were predicted to hit Italy from the 15th onwards, so we made the decision to go on standby for an attempt on either the 17th or 18th October.

ALL SYSTEMS GO

Ultimately, we chose the 18th, so on the evening of the 16th October we boarded the ferry to Sardinia with the team. I spent the 17th of October in Sardinia preparing everything I needed for the crossing attempt. I was going to use my Starboard X-15 85 paired with my Severne HG6 8.0m on the Z-Foil with 74cm front wing. I prepared a CamelBak with 6 litres of water full of mineral salts, maltodextrin, carbs and a little bag to hang below the boom with 10 nuts and honey bars as my rations. I had a GPS on my wrist to register my speed, heart rate and calories, while I also had a larger GPS on my back to track me in the middle of the sea, not only for entertainment, but also for safety purposes, so that Yacht Club Italiano, the sailing club located in Genova that I compete for, could monitor my progress.

D-DAY: THE CHALLENGE

18th October 08:00: I was rigged up and ready to go from Cala Spada, a little beach on the eastern part of Golfo Aranci. Shortly after that, the boat with the crew arrived and I jumped in the water. This year the wind was close to the shore and I started to fly just 100 metres out in front of the little bay. Last year I was not so lucky as I was stuck for a while before hitting the wind. Leaving Golfo Aranci behind me, I tried to stay close to the shore, but the wind was too light on the inside, so I decided to be safe and ride as fast as possible by choosing to stay further outside where the wind was much stronger. I had to do a huge downwinder and the light winds were not making my life easy. I crossed Bonifacio and tried to stay close to Corsica on the west side of my route.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

The wind was super light again close to the shore, so I had to make the difficult decision to leave Corsica on my left and reach the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea where according to the forecast the wind would be stronger. I was shooting as far downwind as possible – 90% of the time on starboard tack – heading toward Montecristo Island, a place famous for the exile prison of Napoleon Bonaparte, 150 km northeast from the starting point. Sometimes I was gybing to change my position and sail port tack for a bit, while always trying to sail as downwind as possible. The boat on the other hand was going straight in order to preserve gasoline. Depending on the gusts and waves I was on the same line as the boat, but sometimes I could actually go faster than the boat and leave them behind. There was no time to waste with hundreds of kilometres still to cover. After the opening hour I found myself in the middle of the sea with no land in sight and that’s how the situation remained for the next couple of hours, which made it both mentally and physically tough to try and maintain a high average speed as you have no landmarks to refer to.

LOSS OF COMMUNICATION

I was drinking every 15 minutes and eating half a bar every 30 minutes to maintain my hydration and energy. Everything was going well until the radio I was using to communicate with the boat broke, which wasn’t a huge problem to begin with as I could still see them. However, with an increase in the wind I was able to pick up my pace, which meant I would soon lose sight of the boat too as they could no longer keep up, so not only could I not talk to my crew, I could no longer see them either, which certainly didn’t make things easy, but I knew I had to sail towards Montecristo, and they knew that too, so I kept pushing.

After a while I caught a glimpse of the nose of the boat on the crest of a wave a couple of klicks upwind, which was a welcome relief, and after what felt like an eternity a mountain finally appeared on the horizon, which made me happy as I could finally see my first “check point”. With land in sight I pushed harder and harder – hitting the highest speed of the whole crossing at over 32 knots. However, I soon realised that this wasn’t a good idea as I was not even halfway, so I slowed down again to try and conserve energy as I could tell I was already quite tired.

SAILING THROUGH THE PAIN BARRIER

After what felt like an endless amount of time, and my feet aching like hell, I finally reached the island. From there I shot downwind a little to the west to reach Pianosa Island, which is also known as ‘The Inaccessible Island’ because it used to be a maximum security prison between 1856-1998. From Pianosa I reached the west point of Elba Island where I met up with Malte [Reuscher], a fellow PWA competitor, half Italian, half German, who was born and raised there. Malte sailed with me around the west corner of the island, but right when we were starting to head east towards Tuscany, a huge mountain on Elba sheltered the wind and we stopped planing. It was the first time I wasn’t on the foil since the start of my trip and I was stuck there for almost 30 minutes just drifting around.

A TOUGH DECISION

I had to make the hard choice to sail back west again to hit the wind line. This would mean sailing in the middle of the sea again, and going downwind towards Livorno directly from the western point of Elba, instead of sailing along Tuscany in calmer seas and actually being able to see my progression toward my destination with clear check-points in sight. I was incredibly tired having already sailed for more than seven hours and the wind was now hitting 25 knots, so it’s safe to say my 8.0m was definitely too big.

ALL ALONE

After a while I was in the middle of the sea again, I had left Malte behind in Elba Island and there was nothing to see around me apart from seemingly never ending expanses of water. I was totally immersed. It took me more than an hour for some mountains downwind of me to finally emerge and as I got closer to shore a lighthouse came into sight. At first, I thought it was Livorno’s light house, but my happiness didn’t last long as I soon realised that I was approximately 30km south of Livorno and the lighthouse in question was actually “Cecina’s” lighthouse, which is another city in Tuscany.

A KILLER BLOW

Realising I was so far south really took the air out of my lungs. I was not only out of my mind, but also physically exhausted, which led to a massive crash. The impact of the crash broke my harness, but luckily the boat wasn’t too far away and they were able to throw me my spare harness. At this point, I was close to shore, but I had still had plenty of water to cover if I wanted to reach my final destination.

SECOND WIND

The crash woke me up, the wind became steadier and the sky erupted into a beautiful, vivid sunset. I actually enjoyed the last stretch gybing downwind along the coast. When I finally saw Livorno, and the line of windsurfers waiting to greet me in front of Tre Ponti Surf Club, I almost cried. It’s hard to put into words just how tough this mission was, I crossed the finish line in front of the beach surrounded by fellow windsurfers and friends. Finally, I had made it.

A CLOSING NOTE

The whole team was on the edge, all extremely tired after 10 exhausting hours on the boat. All my friends, and passionate windsurfers from Tuscany, were on the beach waiting for me to arrive and it was amazing to land on the beach and be surrounded by so many windsurfers and watersports lovers. It has definitely been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, my knees and my whole body was sore, but we did it!

SPECIAL THANKS

Thanks to Stefano and the whole “Team ITA140”, sponsors and supporters for making this mission possible. Thanks to the Tre Ponti Windsurf Club for their help and their welcome upon arrival and thanks to all my followers and passionate windsurfers for pushing me and following the whole time! See you for a new challenge soon!

THE JOURNEY IN NUMBERS

Total Distance Covered: 378 kilometres.

Duration: 9 hours 48 minutes of non-stop wind foiling.

Average Speed: Almost 21 knots.

Calories Burnt: More than 5,000 calories during the crossing and more than 8,000 for the entire day.

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