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Dinis, the sailor

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Ricardo Dinis is an adventurer, but above all is an entrepreneur. He does not seat waiting his dreams come true, runs after them and puts into practice the projects that make sense for his life. A trip to Brazil in sailing boat to celebrate Portugality, national football team and the world cup is his current reverie, in the company of his baby cat, Victoria .

I know that the objective is to navigate to Brazil, but what it takes on average to organize a trip with this scale ?
Ricardo Dinis : There are many areas, one has to prepare the boat and you need to select and prepare the team. To this project I got different people than other challenges, though I always have my "core team". You also need to find the right partners for the trip, we never approached a company for being big, we realize what we want to do, establish the purpose of the trip and questioned : this type of project makes sense to whom ? And only then let's fight . We started immediately to gather the partners half month before, prepared the boat in record time, we had to change it in some detail because I will be in very hot weather and the vessel had several areas of black that had to be changed to white. From the beginning I had this strong desire to support the portuguese team, not only to see the games, but also as Portuguese to show them my will and strength and hopefully we have a very worthy performance. On board I have a beautiful bottle with thousands of messages printed in a cork paper wrapped, from Portuguese around the world, this in a beautiful box with hand painted tiles where each has as its theme the Portuguese culture. This gift is to give strength to the team and good luck for the world cup, which is the biggest event of the Portuguese spoken in the world this year and where we sailed 514 years ago. For me it is very important to develop this kind of projects, November 19th, 2013 when we were playing with Sweden I was a little worried because we had to win, if not I was not going to the world cup and it lost all connection with this Brazil. I think it's important to create these ties not only to political, business and diplomatic ones, but also at a human and cultural level.

Do you have any psychological preparation, since you'll be alone for so long at sea ?
RD : Yeah, not so much the psychologist part, but I have worked with a sport psychologist for a few years, Ana Ramirez, who works with elite athletes. She has been a very important piece in the puzzle of all my projects. Even before the trip we were alone for 20 minutes, was over a year and a half or two we had not seen each other and were talking during this bit. The problem is not so much by being alone at sea , but by knowing how to manage all fronts that these projects involves . It is very challenging for me because I am in the center of it all even if I try not to be and so I'm everyday people on my team ask me things, confirming other and the last word is mine and it is very difficult, because apart from this project I have other activities and having to manage the schedule and cannot fail the " script " that's very demanding. As the part of being alone in the ocean, and I'm always in this situation, I feel very happy in the sea and it is very special, I do not feel loneliness, or any other concern , of course I know I'm alone and I'm away from everything and everyone, but I feel good about it . The physical part this year I took more seriously , trained in " fisiogaspar " where many elements of portuguese football team are preparing .

But there is a very specific training ?
RD : Yes, it was 100 % done for me, beyond the nutritional part which was also accompanied by professionals and done in the same center, it included golden nutrition products, which is a Portuguese company that manufactures supplements workout with protein and carbohydrates. I have all this on board, because drinking water is not enough. Just to put the sail on top of the mast, which weighs 700 pounds , it takes me about 45 minutes and it requires a very intense workout .

How many hours on average you trained ?
RD : Sometimes enter the centar at eight in the morning and go out when it was dark. Had two hours of physiotherapy and ate there, I got to do about 6 to 8 hours of exercise per day .

What are your dietary concerns ? What does a sailor need to be healthy so many months at sea ? You talked about the water that is important, but it is not everything.
RD : As I mentioned I have water to go to Brazil and back, I really have a lot of water on board . It is also very important to have an appetite, like the taste of waht I'm eating, so I have a wide variety of food, but is essentially healthy. I have no beef , sardines and mackerel take were canned in Peniche, to make my meals based on fish and have a lot of grains such as lentils and beans. From Madeira and Green Cape I will bring mostly fresh foods, vegetables and fruits. And I'm always eating, why ? Because I'm always awake, sleep 15 minutes at a time, sometimes not going to get much, ie, 4 four hours in every 24 hours and to keep me aware and energy levels at the top is precisely through vitamin supplements and not take any caffeine. It is essencial to be well fed and always be eating healthy food, a carrot, an apple a courgette or a lettuce and all this gives much strength to the body and I make my diet around it.

But how can you be awake so many hours ? You must also train the body in that direction ?
RD : At the beginning yes, when I started this project in 1996 was very difficult not to sleep because a person is accustomed to waking up in the morning and arrive at night and sleeps. Me on the boat, no. I am always awake and nowadays is automatic for me and I feel good about it , is not something that makes me confused , but it is demanding and I get to be very tired . In an hour I can sleep three or four times ten minutes and during that time I see that the boat is well , does not have ship's on the horizon and go back to sleep a little longer and have got used to doing it and once I go back to land I get in rhythm and once I go back to sea a few more hours I get into that rhythm .

This type of sleep does not cause a greater weariness in the body ?
RD : Without a doubt, because life on the boat is very intense , it is very heavy, I'm always pulling sails and am always working on the vessel .

This turns out to have repercussions ? You spend a lot of time at sea.
RD : It's curious the more time I spend at sea, the more tailored I feel, the body gets stronger, I am more muscular and a month before the trip I'm at my peak, harder and more fat in the last month before going to the sea is so crazy that I lose weight, I can not eat, I've been running from one side to another, have interviews and meetings and I'm at that stage now, I'm a little skinny and then the rest of the trip will get fatten and arrival in Brazil 'll be fine. When you reach the shore I'll have a much healthier air than on the day I left, because all this is exhausting. It is the easiest of the 3 day trip from Lisbon , than day 1 than when I plucked because everything is new and the boat moves, we have to balance ourselves, I feel nauseous , which is normal and it's all a process of adaptation . Day 2 I feel good and the third day is 100 % . I continued if it was my choice, it's easier, but I wanted to stop in Madeira and in Green Cape is important because they are Portuguese speakers and if there were any more land or country that spoke Portuguese I would stop. This is also important .

What is the challenge that arises from here to Brazil in terms of travel ?
RD : There are a number of aspects, from here to the Canary very is very windy there, I try to go to west , between the islands of the archipelago wind funnels. Further south things start to improve a lot, approaching land is very demanding , because I have to understand if I enter the left or right of an island, I cannot sleep , when I was coming to Madeira woke up at four in the morning and during the day I got no sleep at all since that time until the 23 hours because in land I was still working on the boat and see other things. One sleeps very little on arrival to dock safe and well . Between Green Cape and Brazil before crossing the equator, the meteorology of the northern hemisphere has a reaction with the southern hemisphere creating the intertropical convergence in this area and it has everything, too much wind, too little wind and strong electrical storms, that scares me a little, I'm afraid of storms, I have a 23-meter mast in carbon fiber in a horizon with nothing, is like an antenna. I have to be very careful. Crossing the Equator enter the southern hemisphere , I'll have wind, because this has to do with the end the summer and with some nasty weather on arrival in Brazil , possibly going to have a lot of wind to get to Salvador .

What is the thing that pleases you on your travels ? Beyond the challenge of being alone .
RD : I have a great pleasure in making proejctos happen. In having the idea and draw it in my head , knowing what is possible and make it happen . Add the right people , go into battle , roll up your sleeves and throw me out standing and believing . Sometimes I'm not sure if I can , but I think in the end I got it. Was the case of this project , was set up in record time whith the biggest brand in the world that is Tap that is our largest exporter in the world . Our sponsor is the most international of Portuguese players, Luis Figo, our godmother is a great Brazilian singer, Roberta Sá and it all fitted in weeks, part of achieving something on land gives me immense pleasure. Then appears the easiest part of it is to go sailing, the sea part is simpler , my phone does not ring much, I have so many people demanding my attention , I 'm me and my cat. I am happy to be at sea, is a very special place, seems that I breathe deeper have time to stop and look out. People towards a cliff are ecstatic when they look at the sea , I have that moment every day. Even now on the trip a pigeon entered the boat and I was looking at it , the cat stared look at him and it at me and there are very special and unique moments that you cannot explain, that I watch it constantly and exclusively in the front row . And it's very beautiful and strong and that is what motivates me to go to sea and not only communicate the Portuguese nationality , but also this whole thing of being in harmony with nature and be well .

And there comes a point where you get tired of seeing so much water around you ?
RD : No, not at all.

On some of these trips and I think you've done a round the world ...
RD : I have not done a trip around the world , made four trips that would be equivalent to nearly 4 times around the globe .

And liked to do it?
RD : Yes, I think so . It is my desire since the age of eight. Nowadays not push projects with force and urgency, no. This had to happen and I worked for it, but for the trip around the world I will expect the occurrence of an alignment, a thread and am in no hurry to finish. But, believe it will happen when it happens.

But you had some time on some of your trips where you thought it was the day you were going to die ?
RD : I never had a moment to think it was that day , but I had moments where I had the notion of a sensitive and risky situation. I had a series of these, but it is part of the sea, we have storms, accidents and technical problems, I prepare myself as best as possible.

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