A first transatlantic acted as a trigger: leaving medicine for maritime training, STCW certifications,
and accelerated learning through fieldwork. What this early background brings is not anecdotal:
medicine teaches how to diagnose under pressure, to triage urgency, to follow a protocol when lucidity fades —
exactly what navigation in a degraded environment demands. The challenge quickly became applying that rigour on board:
procedures, checklists, watch discipline, and the ability to decide under uncertainty without over-committing to a single hypothesis.
Offshore deliveries: repeated crossings (Atlantic, Pacific), taking on varied platforms,
managing temporary crews, and routing based on GRIB/ECMWF. Each delivery is an exercise in controlled compromise:
weather window against fatigue, speed against wear, comfort against safety, with one priority: arrive without breaking things.
Command of private yachts after obtaining the Captain 500 UMS certificate structured the framework: full responsibility, 24/7,
for safety, vessel integrity and programme. This is where the reflexes useful in the South were formed:
defining thresholds, refusing a "borderline" window, waiting, and walking away without regret when margins disappear.
2016–2022: intensive sailing on a Garcia Exploration 60 (aluminium, full keel), focused on cold seas.
Condensation, icing, accelerated ageing, constant maintenance, energy to defend every day: performance becomes secondary
to the capacity to endure.
Then comes the choice of ARION (14 m Strongall aluminium): a platform built for expedition.
Heavy structure, simplified but redundant systems, maintenance access, reinforced energy autonomy.
The goal is no longer to "go South" occasionally, but to stay there long enough for a route committed to the Sixties,
while limiting technical debt.
Odyssey of AION distils this background: depart from Patagonia, commit to a clockwise arc around the continent,
adapt to the terrain (weather, sea, ice), and close the loop if conditions allow.
Then, depending on ice, logistics and energy, an extended safe harbour phase may be considered in a sheltered anchorage,
with resumption the following summer.
Turning point
From medicine to the sea
Transatlantic → STCW → professional framework, procedures, and fieldwork practice.
Offshore
Deliveries & crossings
Oceans, real weather, continuity vs wear trade-offs.
Command
Platforms & responsibilities
Captain 500 UMS, safety, maintenance, 24/7 navigation.
Cold seas
Polar constraints
Cold, ice, energy, accelerated wear: the discipline of endurance.
ARION
Expedition platform
Strongall aluminium yacht optimised for a long route in the Southern Ocean.