Yuri & Vera Sanada are experienced sailors. Hailing from Brazil, they contacted Philip Beale to join his journey aboard a 600 BC Phoenician ship to both circumnavigate Africa and sail to America! Yuri is a documentarian, and chronicled the journey via film. Rick Bennett spoke with them about their journey through pirate infested waters of Somalia, big storms near Cape Town, South Africa, and their experience building a better rat trap while on the ocean, so that the rat quit eating their food! Check out our conversation...
https://youtu.be/0JhCRQllDsQ
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Brazilian/Portuguese Explorers
Interview
GT 00:39 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to have a real filmmaker on, unlike me. (Chuckling) Could you go ahead and tell us who you are, and where you come from?
Yuri 00:52 My name is Yuri Sanada. I'm from Brazil. I was aboard Phoenician [ship,] the two expeditions, documenting everything. I mean, everything.
GT 01:01 Yes. So, you're a sailor and a filmmaker?
Yuri 01:03 Yes, I'm a sailor as well. Here is my wife, Vera. And before the expedition we lived for 12 years, aboard sailboats.
GT 01:09 Oh, really? Oh, so you are a seasoned sailor.
Yuri 01:12 Yeah, well, yes.
GT 01:15 And how about you Vera? Can you tell us a little bit about your seamanship?
Vera 01:19 Okay, I'm Vera Sanada from Brazil, as well. And we are sailors. We live how he said, twelve years in a sailboat. We have a wonderful time because we travel a lot and have many friends, all the ports we stop, and we love it. And we've been in Phoenicia sailboat too.
GT 01:44 All right. And so, what part of Brazil?
Vera 01:47 Well, I'm from South Brazil, from Rio Grande do Sul and Yuri is from Parana is the middle between Sao Paulo, but now we live in Sao Paulo. After many years in the sailboat, we changed for a house. Yes, for a sustainable house.
GT 02:09 All right. So, you've got your land legs back, then.
Yuri 02:13 Yes, yes. We still sail. We still go out.
GT 02:15 So, you've been married for how long?
Vera 02:18 Almost 34 years.
GT 02:20 And 12 of those years you were married, living on a boat?
Vera 02:23 Yes.
GT 02:25 Does that include the Phoenicia, or is that [extra]?
Yuri 02:27 No, that's before Phoenicia.
GT 02:28 Before Phoenicia.
Yuri 02:29 Oh yes. We finished another two and a half or three years. But before Phoenicia, we sailed for 12 years, yeah.
GT 02:34 Wow. What was your biggest, longest sailboat ride or whatever, before the Phoenicia?
Yuri 02:43 We did a very nice project similar to Phoenicia, which was when Brazil [celebrated] 500 years of discovery. Brazil was discovered in 1500, by Pedro Álvares Cabral. So, in the year 2000, there was this big boat, ceremony of the seas. So, 39 boats sailed from Lisbon, Portugal all the way to Brazil. And we coordinated that project, made a documentary and I got to sail a replica of Caravel which is from 1500, down the Tejo River in Portugal,