Your family have been fishermen for generations, do you remember how you felt the first time you climbed the Atlas?

The leadership of the Atlas is something recent and linked to a very particular moment, a moment of profound changes both in terms of technological and work challenges. A time that is now behind us and over which the very strong sense of family and the stubbornness, the desire to continue at all costs in this job have triumphed.

I would most like to remember my first time as skipper, in 1960, with another wooden boat, the sixteen-metre Santo Padre. I wasn’t yet fourteen and my cousin was to sail on the biggest boat, the Nino Testa. He asked me if I felt like taking his place. I said yes. You can imagine the faces of the sailors when they saw a young boy come aboard… I thought to myself: Lord help me. And he listened to me, evidently. It was one of the weeks we fished the most and the smiles of pity had turned into nods of respect.

They gave me the nickname picciriddu. Commander picciriddu.

You can’t compete with the sea. There are so many unforeseen events that you can only try to get to know it, to make it your friend. I talk to the sea. And, since it knows you too, it can help you, it can suddenly give you what you have been looking for in vain for days. We are not good at this, it is the sea that is good, it is the sea that helps you if you respect it, if you know how to make it your friend. A friendship that has something to do with devotion.

What is the most beautiful aspect of your work?

Believing in it. It is a job that requires faith. You are a small thing in the face of such omnipotence. It takes courage and humility. Patience and hope. Scruple, respect, in a word modesty. A good night’s fishing is a gift you must deserve. A satisfaction that has no comparison.