"We're back home": The Vespucci ship arrives in Cagliari, with 10,000 visitors expected.

The Vespucci has returned to Italy after the North American Campaign that began on May 9th in Genoa. Since yesterday, she has been sailing off the coast of Sardinia, arriving from Cadiz, Spain. She will then dock at the Ichnusa pier in the port of Cagliari, where she will be welcomed by thousands of visitors— approximately 10,000— who will be able to admire her over the next two days, until September 15th.

I'd say this tour went well. It took us across the Atlantic, to the United States, to honor the 250th anniversary of American independence. So, three stops in the US: Baltimore, New York, and Boston, with a naval parade on July 4th under the Statue of Liberty on the Hudson River. After that, we moved further north to Canada to honor another invitation, the Rendez-vous Naval de Québec, along with other ships in Canada, and then the return crossing.

So after 4 months back in Italy, Cagliari first stop, clearly happy with how the campaign in North America went and to be back home again, in short among Italians", said the commander of the Vespucci, Captain Nicasio Falica.

In particular, the journey that took the sailing ship's crew (approximately 220 military personnel, joined in the summer by about 150 cadets) across the ocean, from Tenerife, the last European stop in the Canary Islands, to the United States, was a long one. "Twenty-nine days," recalls the captain, "the longest journey in the history of the Amerigo Vespucci, which we wanted to make under sail, which is how this ship was conceived. And so we went looking for trade winds, which meant we had to sail far south. So what was initially a 3,000-mile journey became a 4,000-mile journey to find the wind. But this allowed us to sail across the Atlantic, even a day early."

A 2026 World Tour—announced in September 2025 by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and an initiative of the Ministry and the Navy, produced by Difesa Servizi spa and developed in collaboration with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Culture, Sport, and Disability—which will conclude in Trieste during the Barcolana regatta in October, after stopping in Venice (from October 2nd to 7th), Naples for the America's Cup preliminaries, and Castellammare di Stabia, the port where the sailing ship was built, from September 17th to 19th.

(Unioneonline)