Crossing the Atlantic aboard two floating cars, a 87 Passat and a Taunus from 81: it is a company that seems to have come out of a surreal novel but, in 1999, the Amoretti brothers and the friend Marcolino de Candia transformed the dream of a sick father actually. It was a 119 -day trip in the middle of the ocean, between waves, hurricanes and silences, which ended with a triumphant landing in Martinica. Yet this extraordinary adventure has almost disappeared from the collective memory.
A dream called “car”
Everything was born with Giorgio Amoretti, photojournalist and free spirit who already in 1978 had tried to cross the ocean with a volkswagen beetle filled with polystyrene, but the authorities stopped him. Twenty years later, when he is diagnosed with a tumor, his children Marco, Mauro and Fabio decide to make his dream come true. With his friend Marcolino De Candia, they prepare two special cars: a Volkswagen Passat of 87 and a Ford Taunus from 81, filled with expanded polyurethane and modified with improvised sails, solar panels and rescue raft.
On May 4, 1999, at dawn, the four adventurers leave the palm tree in the Canaries. To escape the Civil Guard, they choose silence: few strokes of outboard engine, then away, only wind and currents to guide them. The idea of using an ascense parachute as a driving sail revealed itself impractical, so Marcolino was cheering on some luck sails recovered in Liguria. After ten days almost motionless due to the currents, the morale collapses: on May 14, Fabio and Mauro abandon the company, rescued by a helicopter. Only Marco (23 years old) and Marcolino (21) remain, ready to challenge the ocean with the strength of youth and the unconsciousness of the visionaries.
The crazy adventure between meetings and survival
For the two left, the sea becomes a world apart. Marco writes on the diary, Marcolino medita. Far from everything, they feel free from a society that does not represent them. But the crossing is not idyllic: the cars embark on water, the satellite phone turns off, and the Atlantic storms threaten their route every day. In the meantime, on the ground, the Amoretti family faces the pain: Giorgio died on May 28. The news is not immediately communicated to the boys for fear that they destabilize them.
Despite the difficulties, the “car” prove surprisingly solid. Even Hurricane Emily saves them. On the 108th day of the sea, the two meet the oil tanker Chevron Atlantic: the commander, hit by their business, throws food and water into the sea that Marco recovers to swim. It is the signal that the earth is close.
On August 31, 1999, after 119 days of the ocean, Marco and Marcolino landed in Port Tartane, Martinica. Incredit and family family members await them. On that occasion, his mother Serenella finally decides to reveal the death of the father to Marco. The welcome is triumphant, but the glory does not last long: their business, without sponsor and too much out of the patterns, is soon forgotten by the media.
That of the Amoretti brothers was not a race or a record: it was an act of love and freedom, a gift to a visionary father. He showed that even a crazy idea like that of crossing the Atlantic with two cars, could become reality.
