Russian Proa in Massachusetts Circa 2019

[Daniel Reilly]

Hi proa people,

Was just havin some beers with a fellow sailor and he told me about a Russian proa that he encountered somewhere on the coast of Massachusetts sometime shortly before the pandemic, probably the summer of 2019. Supposedly, they (two of three guys) sailed there across the Atlantic, against the wind on her own bottom, on a proa with no real cabin, just a tent on the tramp (at least according to my friend, I think there could've been bunks in the hull for offshore use). They were heading south, for the Caribbean, with ambitions of a circumnavigation. Granted, the crew may have been Ukrainian, or Polish, my friend wasn't quite sure.

Now, being that there's only a handful of proas out there that have actually crossed oceans (and I can name most of them) this information surprised me. Does anyone out there know more about this vessel and her crew? Granted there could be some glaring inaccuracies in the information I got.

 

[oldmulti]

Daniel. These guys (may not be the same people) were rescued off Australia after being attacked by sharks which damaged their inflatable catamaran hulls. The boat when sailed from Russia was a tri that had a tent like cabin. Quote "What an inflatable catamaran was doing far offshore began when two Siberian travelers set off July 2021 along the route of the first Russian round-the-world expeditions of the 19th century. They had initially set out in an inflatable trimaran, but problems somewhere along the route now had them in a catamaran. Hmm…" and "They made it so far as to Vanuatu in the South Pacific, but for ten days the crew had stopped to seal and reinforce their hulls to feel more confident on big waves. They had also found shark bite marks in the hulls, but as the bites didn’t pierce the material, they determined the craft to be safe. Whoops! After their departure on August 28, their route toward Australia was interrupted when attacked by sharks on September 4 which damaged the port rear tank. The following day, the catamaran was again attacked by sharks, with the starboard tank becoming damaged."
Source is: Don’t go offshore in an inflatable sailboat https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2023/09/07/dont-go-offshore-in-an-inflatable/
There are other internet sources which tell more of the story including a stop in USA.

 

[skaraborgcraft]

I remember a thread about that, "cookie-cutter" sharks, never had heard of them or knew they existed, and certainly now give me the willies. Never carried an inflatable liferaft, and probably never will now.......

 

[Daniel Reilly]

That's probably them. Thanks for digging that up! Honestly amazing that they made it as far as they did

 

[comfisherman]

Bumped into them mid Alaska peninsula after they had come down a river crossed up by diomede and run down to false pass. Think the vikings had more coverage than that thing had, it was spartan. Think they moved under 4 knots sailing or with the diesel outboard.

Saw them again a few weeks later when they rolled in to Kodiak, it looked like a survival raft that someone escaped a deserted island on. Visited with them on the dock and one of my guys went out on the town with them. Tough group of guys and a gal at the time we saw them. Guessing late sumer 18' think the boat stayed in homer that winter and re launched again that spring. Pretty wild to think how far they made it.