It`s an ambitious project. It consists in circumnavigate the globe in a classic sailboat, going back over the route of the clippers, the trading ships that for about one hundred years between the 18th and the 19th century sailed　this　route in the high latitudes.

The clippers

The clippers were forced to follow this route because the canals of Panama and Suez didn’t existed. For this reason, they couldn’t follow the relatively more untroubled equatorial route, where the percentage of great atmospheric disturbances is lower and the climate is mild.
Piero and Vittorio Fresi want to sail off from Sardinia, go through the Mediterranean Sea, and from the strait of Gibraltar sail the Atlantic Sea to the extremity of South Africa (cape of Good Hope). After that they want to continue sailing through the Indian Ocean, and having passed the southern Australia (Cape Leeuwin) and the New Zealand go on into the Pacific Ocean toward the southern extremity of South America (Cape Horn), sailing up the Atlantic Ocean for the return route.
The distance to cover is of about 28 thousand miles and the estimated time of cruise with a sailboat like Onitron I-Autoprestige is around 250-300 days.
The modern edge-of-the-technology cruise ships that take part to the great oceanic cruises take between 70 and 90 days to do the circumnavigation around the route of the three Capes.
So... why do it with a classic cruise ship?
The "Fresis" take inspiration from the navigators of the past that with yachts in the last century made the first exciting navigations along the route of the clippers, writing the most beautiful and thrilling pages of offshore sailing.
That doesn’t mean to refuse technological progress, as Onitron I-Autoprestige will be equipped with modern tools for Positioning and communication; that simply means to face the problems of such an hard and demanding route with a standard boat and with classic navigation methodologies and technics.
The supporter of this project, Piero Fresi, is not new to this philosopy. Also in his previous one-man sailing trips used traditional boats.
This time he will have the support of his son Vittorio, who is fond of offshore sailing as well as his father, and has all along worked as teacher in the "Zenit" nautical school.
As far as we know, this is the first time that a father and his son face this challenging route.
We want to prove that with determination, will power and passion, everyone can accomplish significant goals without necessarily move great sums of money, as currently happens with the great regattas around the globe.