Weeks on the high seas – “You have enormous respect for the forces of nature!”

“I heard about this regatta ten years ago and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since,” says Lisa Berger. On Sunday, the big dream of the 33-year-old from Attersee will finally come true. At 2:02 p.m. she will depart for the Atlantic coast of France before heading first to La Palma in the Canary Islands and from there to Gouadeloupe in the Caribbean. 4,000 nautical miles, the equivalent of about 7,500 kilometers, lie ahead of Berger and the approximately 90 other participants in the “Mini Transat”.

“No problem with loneliness”
For two to three weeks, during which it will never be possible to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time, Berger will be all alone on the high seas in her first boat, a Maxi 650. “I have no problem with loneliness,” says the adventurer, “but when you sail solo, all your emotions go through you, there is a lot of stress and you just have a huge respect for the forces of nature! Berger has been preparing for their adventure for three years or had to qualify for it first.

Collision with wreck
“We had to travel 1,000 nautical miles just to qualify,” says the Upper Austrian, who learned during her first voyage that anything can happen on the high seas. “I had collisions with driftwood, which left a one-meter long crack in my boat. The Coast Guard then had to tow me to Mallorca,” says Berger, who obviously hopes that something like this does not happen again. Her goal is to finish in the top 10.