Navigator left alone in a small boat off the coast of Namibia, in Africa, and landed in Bahia a hundred days later on a route of almost 7,000 km.
Amyr had this bold endeavor in mind: rowing single-handedly from Lüderitz, southwestern Namibia, to Salvador, Bahia, Northeast Brazil, in a less than 20 feet long wood-and-epoxy hulled boat. No GPS, just him, 3,700 miles of the vast Atlantic Ocean, sea creatures below, and the stars above.
After studying what other famous explorers did before him he got concerned: many have died during the transatlantic trip when their rowing boat turned upside down.
— “It only takes one storm to make my boat turn turtle.”, he thought.
He then decided to touch base with José Carlos Furia, a consulting engineer specialized in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
— “No matter how bad the weather is, Mr. Furia, we have to build a rowing boat that never turns upside down.”
Furia got obsessed with the idea of building a solid, shipwreck-proof rowing boat. Sketch after sketch, it consumed him for months. The problem seemed unsolvable.
Since his first contact with the local fishermen canoes in the small historical city of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Amyr felt this strong urge of throwing himself into the seas. A vocation that was reciprocal: the seas also wanted Amyr and they would become a single entity over the next decades of his life.
It was just a matter of time until Furia got hit by a paradoxical epiphany:
— “Amyr, we can’t run from the problem, we have to embrace it. Trying to build a shipwreck-proof rowing boat is impossible, instead, what we have to do is to build one that turns upside down but quickly turns itself back up. You will be turning turtle like crazy from Namibia to Brazil. Embrace the challenge.”
The Sea Gods worked their magic.
In 1984, Amyr Klink finally faced the solitude of the Atlantic Ocean. A hundred days after his departure from Namibia, he dropped anchor in Brazil.
On September 18, 1984, 28-year-old Amyr Klink set foot on dry land for the first time in a hundred days. More precisely, on the sand of Praia da Espera, in Camaçari, on the coast of Bahia. For the more than three months leading up to this moment, Amyr spent his time rowing eight hours a day, cleaning the boat, preparing meals, sleeping and collecting encounters with sharks, whales, seagulls and fish (see the video above).
It took Amyr Klink a hundred days and nine hours to cross the Atlantic, paddling alone in a boat that was 5.94 meters long and, at most, 1.52 meters wide. In her arms was the only propelling force to cross the 3,700 nautical miles, the equivalent of almost 7,000 kilometers, between Lüderitz, on the coast of Namibia, and the coast of Bahia. In 1984 there was no GPS and the location estimates were made by an instrument called a sextant. Communication was also scarce. Amyr, friends and relatives were waiting for the day and time for radio transmissions.
Amyr likes to say that the hundred days of the crossing were the icing on the cake, where he had the most fun and felt fulfilled. The trip actually started two years earlier. He participated in every aspect of the project - from the design of the boat to 150 packages with breakfast, lunch and dinner, with dehydrated and unsalted food, prepared so that he could maintain a balanced diet and using sea water to cook and season .
Not to mention the problems with transporting the vessel, the fear of overturning and not being able to turn the boat around, the unpleasant discovery that two rowers had already tried to repeat the same feat ... and died. Hence the resistance to obtain authorization to leave Africa to paddle - authorities feared that they would have to expend resources for an eventual rescue operation. Problems that were left behind, one by one, revealing the planning successes.
In celebration of the future 37th anniversary of the crossing of the South Atlantic, we spoke with Amyr Klink of 2019. Very different from that of 1984. Today, in addition to this crossing to call his own (and never repeated by any other rower), he collects more of forty sailings to Antarctica. In one, he was anchored for a year. He spent the winter months with the boat stuck by the frozen sea and without sunlight. Then he decided to head straight for the Arctic.
Seven years later, he toured the world until then unheard of. With a sailboat and alone, again, across the most stormy ocean strip on the planet. Reports of these and other trips are spread over six books. The trips continue with his wife Marina and three daughters. Today, Amyr runs his companies and gives lectures across the country to talk, precisely, about planning.
How was the start of the trip?
Amyr Klink: On June 9, 1984, I got permission to leave after weeks of red tape. I didn't know that there were three attempts at guys who died. They were military. Then South Africa spent a fortune trying to find it and never did. I was so afraid of the bureaucracy that I left on the 10th. The first day was a tragedy. A sailboat came with me to say goodbye with some friends from Lüderitz who helped me solve the bureaucratic licenses and had a farewell party.
At 5 am on Sunday morning, everyone was drunk. They came drunk after me when I entered the open sea. They found that I had forgotten a jacket on board the sailboat. Only there were already big waves, two, three meters and, in an attempt to iron the coat, it was chaos.
The jacket got tangled in the paddle, the paddle was pulled out, they pulled me a second try and I hit my boat, imagine, a small boat, overloaded, it should have almost a ton of supplies for three and a half months. I hit the side of the sailboat and opened a hole in the hull. They were at risk of shipwreck and disappeared. So my journey began.
Amyr Klink arrived in Salvador on September 19, 1984 and received a tribute from colleagues in the São Paulo rowing - Photo: Amyr Klink / Personal archive
You consider the 18th of September as the end of the trip, but, on the 19th, you still went to Salvador. Because?
Amyr Klink: In most of the crossings that were successful in the North Atlantic, no one physically arrived on the other side. The people arrived at a beach with a surf. It's just like arriving in Copacabana and flipping the boat over in the sand. I did not want. I didn't want to arrive in a port, under an oil tanker, and I didn't want to arrive in an inhospitable coastal ... I wanted to arrive in a portinho and then I found, on the last day, 18, Prainha da Espera, which is the only sheltered, natural port , from all that north coast of Salvador. Only there is a sheltered bay. I think if I could choose a cooler place to go, I wouldn't find it.
How was your arrival?
Amyr Klink: The last few days were that tension to try to find the right place. In the end, I was happy to meet two fishermen. I tangled in a net, then I took the helm out of the net and thought "well, at least I touched a piece of Brazil, a Brazilian net". And then two very poor fishermen came shouting "how was the fishing?". I said "no, I'm fishing, no ...". They asked where I was coming from. I said "from Africa" and they replied "I don't know where this beach is. Tell Doró that we are going back on Wednesday and that the money is under the towel on the table". When I arrive at the beach, coincidentally, I find Doró.
At the end of the trip, you realized that you were being accompanied by many more people than you imagined on the radio.
Amyr Klink: I arrived at 1:30 pm. I delayed, for the first time, 30 seconds in the time of the announcement. Then the radio amateurs were nervous because I hadn't passed my position since Friday. I only spoke on Tuesdays and Fridays and everyone wanted to know my distance from the coast, general condition, how I was ... and I said "oh, I can't calculate the position anymore because I arrived, I just arrived".
I didn't know that there were thousands and thousands of radio amateurs who were in attendance, but out of respect for my condition, with a restricted battery, they didn't ask for a challenge. So I thought my friends were the five radio amateurs I was talking to. In fact, there were thousands who controlled themselves because they wanted to, when I spoke I arrived, everyone wanted to speak. Then, it didn't work, there were radio amateurs from all continents. I turned off the radio and got off the boat. Who appears next to me? Doró.
He asked exactly the same thing as the other two, he wanted to know what the fishing had been like. I said I hadn't caught anything. He comes to me a few minutes later with two sardines as a gift and says "oh, life is like that, there are days when you can't do it". So, it was a really cool arrival and those hours I spent at Praia da Espera were the biggest prize I have won so far, without a doubt.
You always talk about the finitude of the boat, about having to live with very limited resources. What did you learn from that trip?
Amyr Klink: I lived on very little, I lived on less than three liters of fresh water a day. The average Brazilian spends two hundred. It's a lot of water. And I was happy on the boat. It is a very rich teaching environment because there is no room for redundancy, you cannot waste it. The reason for my happiness was not to have exceeded my limits and this self-help nonsense. The reason for my joy the day I arrived was to fulfill the plan. It's cool to have a plan and stick to it. When I threw the anchor and stepped on the sand, the plan ended, it was over.
If that crossing were today, what would change?
Amyr Klink: Today, for example, I would not take water. The logical item that seems to be the most important in a long ocean voyage. Today you have wonderful desalinizers, small and portable. You pump a hundred times and half a liter of water comes out. I wouldn't take the radio, today we have satellite telephony. It would be very easy to make the boat less than half the weight. Right, 300 kg, 350 kg.
If it were today, I would be on Instagram a lot of the time, on social media, I would probably have 2 or 3 million followers and, in a week, none. I wasn't going to have anything else to say because everyone has already followed what happened. So I would have had millions of guys toasting my life on board in the last week and the first week back in Brazil I would have nothing more to say.
You always talk about the finitude of the boat, about having to live with very limited resources. What did you learn from that trip?
Amyr Klink: I lived on very little, I lived on less than three liters of fresh water a day. The average Brazilian spends two hundred. It's a lot of water. And I was happy on the boat. It is a very rich teaching environment because there is no room for redundancy, you cannot waste it. The reason for my happiness was not to have exceeded my limits and this self-help nonsense. The reason for my joy the day I arrived was to fulfill the plan. It's cool to have a plan and stick to it. When I threw the anchor and stepped on the sand, the plan ended, it was over.
If that crossing were today, what would change?
Amyr Klink: Today, for example, I would not take water. The logical item that seems to be the most important in a long ocean voyage. Today you have wonderful desalinizers, small and portable. You pump a hundred times and half a liter of water comes out. I wouldn't take the radio, today we have satellite telephony. It would be very easy to make the boat less than half the weight. Right, 300 kg, 350 kg.
If it were today, I would be on Instagram a lot of the time, on social media, I would probably have 2 or 3 million followers and, in a week, none. I wasn't going to have anything else to say because everyone has already followed what happened. So I would have had millions of guys toasting my life on board in the last week and the first week back in Brazil I would have nothing more to say.
The book about the trip 100 Days Between Sea and Sky is available on Amazon
