“The sea is not our environment”. It seems strange to hear this from the most famous of contemporary navigators, Giovanni Soldini, fresh from the victory of the eighth edition of the RORC Transatlantic Race with Maserati Multi70. But then he explains the value of the sea: «a very important natural element for us, for our survival on the planet and for many species. Perhaps the best way to experience it is in a simple way, with a sailboat that consumes little and moves with a relatively low impact ».
Soldini is the first guest of the Milanese showroom of RRD – Roberto Ricci in a review in the name of the sea that has as its background the sea literature in special editions re-edited by RRD, Sea on words, in this case Sailing around the world alone by Joshua Slocum.
The sailor talks with Gabriele Musante, illustrator and author of Moitessier. The long route of a free man, and with Niccolò Maria Santi. “My goal is to invite as many people as possible to get closer to the beauty of the sea and the thrill of discovery”, explains Roberto Ricci, founder of RRD – Roberto Ricci Designs.
For Soldini too, the discovery is continuous. «At sea, every trip is different because the weather conditions change, there can be unexpected events. What always happens in recent years is seeing the impact of man getting heavier and heavier and recognizing more and more. All the seas of the world are invaded by plastic, everyone has a problem of overfishing and for everyone there is an abuse of the coasts. Mangroves are razed to the ground to make shrimp farms ».
The complaint is clear. “For too many years we have used it as a landfill and still we tend to consider it infinite and we steal its resources without a project, without thinking about tomorrow. We do crazy things: we fish hake like crazy until they are gone. We endanger the survival of our planet and of many other species. It would be enough to have a common project, a minimum of common sense, giving marine flora and fauna the time and space to reproduce and not treating it as if it were an infinite resource. Industrial fishing in recent decades is something that does insane damage and greatly impoverishes the resources of the sea ».
Can you see plastic in the sea? “Floating objects are seen, however, taking into account that 70% of the plastic we produce does not float and therefore what we see is a small part. It is enough to go to any beach in winter, when it is not cleaned, to realize what reality is: the sea gives us back the objects that we throw into it ».
Despite the discomfort due to the impact of human activity, love for this environment prevails. “The sea is a large space that unites different peoples and countries. Fortunately, marine life still exists today. If we are able to agree and give ourselves rules, all is not lost. We need protected marine reserves where the marine environment can reproduce and then life resumes with a certain ease. Concrete actions are needed. In the last crossing we made between Antigua and La Spezia we met a whale, very close, not often because there are fewer and fewer whales ».
“We are in a crazy moment, there is a war that seems to have set us back a hundred years, there is a very important environmental issue, there is also a desire at European level to change the impact economy with the NRP. Instead these days I hear about how to find other sources of gas, of nuclear power plants: we seize the ball and put an avalanche of wind turbines and solar panels. I don’t understand what we are waiting for. We have to start from something. We cannot think of building 5 nuclear power plants which take 5 years. I have sailed in the Northern seas where there are passageways because it is full of wind turbines ».
How did you find out about the war? «I was far away, in the middle of the sea: it was a sad and worrying thing. The world has regressed in two weeks: this is even more disarming when one is used to traveling, going left and right. We have done two world tours in five years and the idea of national borders is already difficult for mei, I am capable of forgetting that we have to go through customs ».
Source: Vanity Fair
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