The sailing voyage led by the ex-combatant of the Malvinas war, Nilo Navas, fulfilled its mission and in the last few hours it reached Cape Horn, where it had proposed to sail in homage to the General Belgrano Cruiser that was in that place during the war with Great Britain in 1982.
The expedition aboard the “Galileo”, an 11-meter-long sailboat that set sail from the city of Ushuaia on January 9, circumnavigated the southernmost islands of the continent, although it is not yet known if they managed to land on Isla Hornos, an objective It depended on the climatic circumstances.
The last message from the boat came on Wednesday night: “We are on our way to Hornos. All good on board. We eat very well and we are accompanied by dolphins and penguins. The crew, happy”, reported the navigators hours before a satellite tracker located them in the destination area.
After leaving the capital of Tierra del Fuego, the Galileo made its first call in the Chilean town of Puerto Williams, where its crew spent the night before continuing their journey.
They then passed near Picton, Nueva and Lennox islands, before heading south towards the most extreme point of South America.
Navas said that his sixth nautical voyage has “historical connotations” because the General Belgrano Cruise was in that area during the Falklands War.
The crew of the sailboat is made up of captain Andrés Antonini, boatswain Mario Monserrat and skipper and head of navigation Jorge “Jota” Patoco
The ship was positioned there “between April 26 and 28, 1982 to intercept British ships during the war, something that ultimately did not happen,” explained the ex-combatant in dialogue with Télam.
With the same boat belonging to the Malvinas Argentinas Foundation of Bahía Blanca, in 2017 the also economics teacher and radio host made a trip to the site of the sinking of the Argentine Navy cruise ship, where an act of homage to the 323 deceased.
A 2019 expedition served to create the “Heroes de Malvinas” thematic library at the San Juan de Salvamento lighthouse (known as the End of the World Lighthouse) on Isla de los Estados, another in 2020 took them to different national Antarctic bases and in In 2021 they returned to the mythical archipelago where Jules Verne’s book takes place to honor Commander Luis Piedrabuena.
The crew of the sailboat is made up of the “usual team” made up of Captain Andrés Antonini, boatswain Mario Monserrat and skipper and head of navigation Jorge “Jota” Patoco, to which in this case the navigator Ernesto Niedzwiecki was added.
The novelty of this trip is that for the first time two women joined: Verónica Varas and Cynthia Burna, both navigators from Buenos Aires
However, the novelty of this trip is that for the first time two women joined: Verónica Varas and Cynthia Burna, both navigators from Buenos Aires.
Before returning to Ushuaia, at the end of this month, the Galileo will travel through the Fuegian channels and the glaciers located along the way, only to return to the Beagle Channel afterwards and complete its journey.
