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From the family boatyard to the stormy Atlantic: the crazy feat of Al Grover, who in the summer of 1985, along with his sons Al Jr. and Dante, braved the ocean with an outboard boat.
It was 1985 when Al Grover at age 54, in the midst of a midlife crisis, set out to accomplish something that had never been done before. Cross the Atlantic in a small boat equipped with an outboard motor. From Nova Scotia (United States) to Europe. Al was the owner of the shipyard of the same name, and for his venture he chose a 7.92-meter Grover he christened “Trans-Atlantic” equipped with a single engine, a 40-hp Evinrude, plus a small reserve outboard. With him he brought his son, Al Jr. It was an absolutely epic voyage, preceded by numerous failed attempts, exhausting preparations, and several schedule changes.
A story bordering on the verisimilar, perhaps almost unbelievable, but so unique that it is still immaculate today, the story of the Autonauts. It was 1999 and brothers Marco, Mauro and Fabio Amoretti, in the company of Marcolino De Candia, braved the Atlantic Ocean in an ’87 Volkswagen Passat and an ’81 Ford Taunus. From the Canary Islands to the Caribbean by car, an affair without equal, and one that undoubtedly deserves a dusting off now and then. Read the full article here.
Also, during the crossing Al Grover had to face a gale, a hurricane and even a fall overboard before reaching Lisbon (Portugal) and entering the Guinness Book of World Records.
Father and son set up the boat in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Once in the water and loaded with about 2,000 liters of fuel, the boat had only 25 centimeters of freeboard. Nevertheless, they headed for the starting point: the island of St. Pierre, off the southern coast of Newfoundland.
While in St. Pierre, they met a navy captain, Claude, who would be crossing the Atlantic the next day aboard his 16.76-meter ketch, and the two established a schedule to stay in touch. When they left the next day, August 1, 1985, the weather conditions seemed ideal. But already by nightfall the nature of the Atlantic had changed. Seemingly without warning, they found themselves in the middle of a gale. “The winds destroyed our brains,” Al Jr. recalls, “they were blowing with incredible force. The waves were three or four meters high. When they hit you, you felt like someone was throwing concrete at the boat.” Thirty-six hours later, they were out of the gale.
On the twelfth day of sailing, with the sea rough and Al Jr. going below deck to get some sleep, Al Grover imprudently headed aft to lower the auxiliary engine, without hooking into the “jack line.” In an attempt to force it, the man ended up in the water in the middle of the ocean. The boat continued to sail. “I heard the thud, jumped up and saw that he had fallen into the water,” the son recalls, “so I put the engine in neutral. He had to swim back to the boat because he was drifting. He would get about 10 feet closer, but then a wave came and dragged him away about 30 feet. I would say for a good 10 or 12 minutes he swam as fast as he could.” He finally reached the boat and was pulled aboard. But they were far from being out of danger.
During the voyage, Al and his son had received constant reassurances from Claude, the captain they met in St. Pierre, about the weather. But around the 19th day of sailing, they sensed concern in his voice. “He had told us that a storm was coming and that it was not going to be good,” Al Jr. recounts, “the tone of his voice let us know that we were in a bad situation. They were about to be hit by Hurricane “Claudette.” Al had a friend stationed on Governors Island who monitored Atlantic traffic for the Coast Guard. Al, however, recounts that abandoning the boat and getting rescued was never an option. “I wouldn’t have abandoned that boat if it wasn’t sinking,” he says. With the weather particularly bad-one night the waves were more than 7.6 meters high and winds exceeded 75 knots-Al feared the worst.
He told his son, “I think we’d better get ready, our journey is coming to an end.” But Al Jr. supported him and told him that his life was not over yet. For most of the storm, they turned off their engines and drifted, following the waves. A small stabilizer sail helped keep the bow downwind. They also remained without radio contact due to a dead battery. During the absence of radio contact, many feared the worst. But eventually the sea calmed and they realized that they might survive. To the attributes success in weathering the hurricane to the buoyancy of the boat, which remained on the waves like a float of a fishing line.
Once the hurricane had passed, Al and Al Jr. faced another one small challenge to reach the Azores. They had no detailed nautical charts and had lost their position. Once they recharged their VHF radio and the boat’s power system, Al was able to contact the captain of a 46-meter Portuguese fishing boat who caught up with them and gave them the exact course to Flores.
When they reached Flores, in the Azores, with less than 220 liters of gasoline, they still had 1,000 miles to go to Portugal. So at Horta, on the island of Faial, they refueled with another 2,700 liters of fuel. Here Al Grover’s other son, Dante, also boarded, while Al Junior, now exhausted, disembarked. They then traveled to Ponta Delgada, on the island of San Miguel, before heading to Lisbon. The journey from the Azores to Lisbon was entirely uneventful. On many days the water was almost completely flat.
Father and son landed in Lisbon on the night of September 3, 1985, greeted by a small group, including the Evinrude distributor for Spain and Portugal. In total, they traveled nearly 3,000 miles in 33 days, 26 of them at sea. Incredibly, their voyage was completely free of mechanical problems with the propeller. Most importantly, the Groverbuilt Trans-Atlantic proved it could withstand some of the worst conditions the Atlantic had to offer.
David Ingiosi
Photo credits images: www.powerandmotoryacht.com
Con questa barchetta (4 metri) nel 1970 hanno attraversato l’Atlantico
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