Pilar Pasanau is a captain in the Merchant Navy and a veteran navigator. He has traveled more than 25,000 nautical miles and has accumulated six Atlantic crossings, four of them alone. She also knows what it’s like to be rescued by a helicopter after her boat capsizes during a storm near Marseille. It’s not a bad resume to be able to face your dream with certain guarantees: going around the world alone..
The Mini Globe Race has been his bet, a relatively affordable trip around the world, alone and with stops, along the trade wind route. It is raced in boats of the 5.80 class: smaller boats than Mini5.80 meters in length, and on top of that they are self-built by the sailors themselves.
So Pasanau ordered the plans and began building his new Peter Punk, which is the name he baptizes his units. «It is a very uncomfortable boat, it is a boat and it barely runs. It has a lot of stability, yes, it is made to last, it is much stronger than a Mini. It has three watertight compartments, so it is unsinkable,” explained Pasanau. An unsinkable boat with which he aspires to fulfill his dream.
fifteen months
The departure of this trip around the world is on February 23 from Antigua. Panama, Fiji, Cape Town, Recife and return to Antigua is the proposed route. «The race is done in five stages because it is a very small boat and I could not stow all the food and water that I would need during the circumnavigation. We will go so little by little that we will need fifteen months to do it,” the sailor reported before leaving aboard the Peter Punk heading to Lagos, in Portugal. The Globe 5.80 Transat, the transatlantic regatta prior to the round-the-world race, departs from here today.
The 3,600 nautical miles of this voyage will take Pasanau and eleven other sailors from Lagos to Antigua, stopping in Lanzarote. «For now I am going to race the Globe 5.80 Transat and I will stay in Antigua. But I will only be able to participate in the Mini Globe Race if I obtain the necessary sponsorship to acquire the safety equipment required».
It is a last barrier to fulfilling his dream, but his determination is intact: «I have sailed all my life, and participating in this regatta is a dream. “I am ready to enjoy every moment of this adventure.”
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