misdeeds, drifts & business at sea

It took Sardinia and Corsica twelve thousand years to move so far apart. The last “contact” between the two islands, according to paleontologists, dates back to the end of the Pleistocene. A geological gap of just 12 km of navigation, just 45 minutes of crossing the disastrous Strait of Bonifacio. All this until November 27 of this year. Since then the distance between the two islands has become abysmal.

Worse than the ice ages

Sardinia Region & Moby Lines have succeeded where even the most shocking ice ages had failed. Overcoming every law of geology, mocking the archaic somersaults of the sea and the land, the protagonists of the most surreal Sardinian-Corsican territorial continuity have succeeded in a titanic undertaking, unique in the universal history of the Mediterranean: separating Sardinia and Corsica with a full four hours of sailing. They closed, without a shot being fired, the historic route between Santa Teresa di Gallura and Bonifacio, the coastal extremities of the two islands, to open a completely new one between Golfo Aranci and Porto Vecchio, over 70 km of additional sea to disembark on the land of Corsica. The story may seem surreal, but the news has surpassed itself.

The Newfoundland Drift

The crime would have remained hidden from most if last December 18th the “new” tramp-ship destined to extend the route between Sardinia and Corsica had not ended up unworthily adrift at the gates of the Gulf of Terranova, modern Olbia. The story of the satellite tracks is more eloquent than any land pursuit, a real gymkhana in the middle of the sea, with a ferry fortunately at the mercy of only a flat calm, just on the eve of the mistral “monsoons” forecast for the following day. The most impetuous of Onorato’s tugs, Mascalzone Scatenato, thought of saving the Moby Zaza, a name that says it all, and was forced to sadly recover it with the towing of the ship by now resigned to drifting for two hours, in the silence of the engines and the blackout of the route.

Territorial discontinuity

The landing at one of the Moby docks at Olbia’s Isola Bianca crosses the dead of night, but bursts in like yet another misdeed on the territorial “discontinuity” between Sardinia and Corsica. The level of “disservice” has become increasingly “glacial” year after year in the background of drifts, accidents, breakdowns, blackouts , broken ships and most of the time disarming. In the Sardinian-French docks, curses are consumed with a rosary of crimes, from the interruption of public service to the attack on navigation safety, from the omission of official duties to the most disparate complicities. Many are unaware of a real middle world, the one that lives between the two sister islands. There is everything on that disastrous route: there are workers, transporters, traders, breeders, cement, cardboard, feed, fruit, food of all kinds, wood and livestock. A parallel and underground world is there, it is significant, but it is not perceived. It is, that between Corsica and Sardinia, an indissoluble red thread, a bond that has become over the centuries an osmosis, economic, social and cultural. And yet what is taking place between the two island lands goes far beyond the public-private misdeed. It is the story of a borderline management of public money, a lot of money, for a service that does not exist, where the contracts are waste paper, ended up balled up between the Straits of Bonifacio, swallowed up in contempt for the rules, rights and duties. The first of the misdeeds took place in 2016, but the ordeal began a few years earlier. With an operation that still today cries out for vengeance, fiscal and criminal, Saremar, the public company that managed the connections between Sardinia and Corsica, is accompanied to “failure” by suicidal regional choices, which annihilate services and even profits, given that the Sardinian-Corsican route was in the black, “despite” the public management. The ships are sold off, as if they were going to the scrapyard the next day. In reality, however, after that division between private individuals, those same ferries remain on the same routes, with only a change of livery, from Saremar to the lucky private individuals, those who will enjoy free ships and public money in abundance. According to international agreements, the tender for territorial continuity between Sardinia and Corsica must be managed by the Sardinian Region. The tender notice and specifications are as rigorous as the crystal ball of an expert fortune teller: everyone knows from the start who will win. The verdict is already written: sole participant, ships that are well over forty years old, random service and practically without penalties, given that after the suppression of a myriad of “runs” they do not pay a single euro of fine. The winner hands down, with two ships two steps away from half a century each, is Moby Lines, the one owned by the Onorato family.

Ports disappeared

The tender is precise in a few points, but on one it is peremptory: ” Public maritime connection service for the transport of people, vehicles and goods in territorial continuity between Sardinia and Corsica – Santa Teresa di Gallura – Bonifacio line and vice versa in the period from 1 November to 31 March “. The technical attachments indicate the evolution radius of the naval vessels, draft and technical characteristics. The two ships “offered” by Moby, one owner and one reserve, are a dated guarantee: between them, they are almost a century old, the Giraglia and the Bastia. The cost of the contract is in the millions: over 13 million euros for six years to cover just 5 months of the year, from 1 November to 31 March. Too bad that since 27 November the two ships have literally disappeared from the radar.

The ships disappear

The Giraglia, after yet another breakdown, disappears in a shipyard in Livorno. The “Bastia”, a theoretically reserve ship, has been segregated in some nook and cranny in the port of Naples for some time. It is at this moment that the Moby Zaza appears. A ferry with an unspeakable history, starting from its beginnings: three years after its launch, in 1981, it collided with a cargo ship loaded with radioactive materials. Zaza survives, but the cargo ship sinks. Its survival has been on the brink of scrapping for decades: a floating hotel for workers dedicated to the construction of offshore wind farms, a floating hotel for migrants in the Covid era, until its decommissioning in recent months, with fires on board and blackouts . At the end of November it enters service: unfortunately, however, it cannot sail the port of Santa Teresa.

Surreal Business

The epilogue is surreal: the route suddenly becomes Golfo Aranci-Orto Vecchio. From 45 minutes to four hours of navigation. Corsica has never been so far away. The contracts and tender specifications are waste paper. The Straits of Bonifacio are closed. It is time for business and misdeeds on the route between Sardinia and Corsica. With too many silences and many accomplices.

Mauro Pili

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