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Two
students on the trails of an old
myth...
Two students
looked for the last adventure - and they
found it: with a "nut-shell" being 5
metres long, on the trails of Odysseus
from Rijeka to Athens, to the Olympic
Games.
Experienced
sailers branded this project as not
possible and bursted into laughter; port
captains couldn't believe their eyes and
tried to prevent the continuation of their
journey.
And rightly so:
The two sailing-beginners Martin Florian
and Justinus Wagner weren't prepared for
the dangers of the sea on this small boat,
that wasn't safe. Not only the dangers of
the sea, such as thunder storm, enormous
waves and shallows, had to be overcome;
even countries, being regarded as not
traversable to this day, had to be
travelled through: e.g. Albania with its
piracy!
But they made
it! They reached their destination Athens
just in time to the celebration of the
Olympic Games, although they had to take
lots of hurdles: breakdowns of the engine
while thunder storms; helpless drifting on
the high seas; breakdowns while night-time
driving; wind-forces only for seaworthy
large boats; engine repairs at night;
difficulties with the Albanian
bureaucracy; controls by costguards at
night; all the physical and psychological
burdens.
The return
journey was more difficult than they ever
imagined: daily gusts of wind up to
wind-force 8 made them feel like balls on
the waves. Like once Odysseus, they often
were forced to look for a secure harbour
on small islands and to wait the storm
out. Time was pressing, because they hat
to be back home just in time to continue
their studies. Like lepers, being
helplessly at the mercy of the weather,
the situation got a question of
nerves...
Altogether, they
did more than 1200 nautical miles (more
than 2200 km) for a period of 50 days at
sea!
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