The Orient Expedition

The Orient Expedition visits Antarctica, an inhospitable continent filled with challenges never before experienced by the Schurmann Family.

When the Schurmann Family learns that the Chinese made seven major sea voyages in the 15th century, they decided to build a new boat to carry out the Orient Expedition.

When the Schurmann Family learns that the Chinese made seven major sea voyages in the 15th century, they decided to build a new boat to carry out the Orient Expedition.

After 450 days at sea the Orient Expedition has already sailed around South America, visited Antarctica, crossed the entire Pacific and arrived in Oceania. The goal of the Schurmann Family on its third sail around the world is to reach Asia where it will investigate the trips of the "Treasure Fleet" between 1405 and 1433, when the Chinese explorers visited thirty-seven countries almost a century of the European explorers. Following its route, Sailing Yacht Kat sails up the coast of Queensland, crosses the Coral Sea and goes towards Papua New Guinea. And wherever it goes, the Schurmann Family interacts with native communities and exchanges memorable experiences. In Gona Bara Bara the family encounters a community going through a water crisis and ends up donating five hundred liters of Sailing Yacht Kat's tanks. In Yanaba they meet a man who in 1993 found a message in a bottle thrown by the family when they passed through the region more than two decades ago and the reuniting is more thant a surprise. Thus, living a new emotion every day, the Schurmann's remain steadfast in their investigation into a little known fact and are surrounded by mysteries that preceded the era of the great discoveries.

Near completion of a year and a half, the Orient Expedition continues on its way to Asia to investigate seven great Chinese sea expeditions between 1405 and 1433. Sailing Yacht Kat arrives in Micronesia and ports in Guam, where Vilfredo and Heloísa will talk to a historian to see if the presence of the Chinese in the region is as old as one might think. Were they here nearly a century before the Europeans? The two take the opportunity to leave all the garbage they have collected on some islands in a recycling plant and know about the important work being done on the island. From Guam Sailing Yacht Kat moves on to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, where Wilhelm joins a windsurf competition and everyone takes an incredible dive in a cave. The next stop of the Expedition is in Okinawa, Japan, which was once an independent kingdom with a long history of trade and diplomatic relations with the Chinese Empire. Heloísa talks to a local historian to find out if there is a genetic link between the people of this island and the Chinese on the continent and ends up receiving important information. Finally, it is time to go to China, the most important country of this third sail around the world, and the Schurmann Family go to Shanghai for information that can elucidate the facts and dismantle the controversial theories that surround the history of the Fleet Of the Treasury.

After a year and seven months at sea, the Orient Expedition arrives in China to seek information on the navigation's that the country made in the 15th century.

On the seven major voyages of the Chinese navy, which became known as the Treasure Fleet during the fifteenth century, the road to the Indian Ocean necessarily passed through Southeast Asia. So after visiting China and obtaining important information about these expeditions, the Schürmann Family follows the route of their third sail around the world sailing through the South China Sea after the stops in Vietnam and Malaysia and across the Java Sea, South of the Strait of Malacca, where the Chinese, led by Admiral Zheng He defeated a group of five thousand pirates during the third voyage. The Orient Expedition then arrives in Jakarta, where Captain Vilfredo and Heloisa meet an environment full of ethnic and religious diversity, then pass through Krakatoa Island, Sunda Strait, and the Mentawai Islands, where Sailing Yacht Kat prepares to cross the Indian Ocean, the largest navigation leg of the entire expedition to date.

The Orient Expedition crosses the Indian Ocean on a journey full of challenges, but before arriving in Africa, it makes stops in Mauritius and Réunion, where the crew ends up living incredible adventures.

The Orient Expedition departs from Richards Bay in South Africa towards Cape Town in the same country. The navigation between the two points can be dangerous because it is precisely in this stretch of the Indian Ocean that there is the famous "Chain of Needles", considered one of the strongest in the world. On days of unfavorable conditions the combination of strong winds in the opposite direction usually generates large waves, which reach twenty meters in height. And the problem is not only here, because Sailing Yacht Kat will still have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, also known as "Cape of Storms", a place of turbulent waters where navigation is so dangerous that many scholars throughout world do not believe that the Chinese junks of the "Treasure Fleet" have been able to overcome this challenge during the fifteenth century when they have been proven in cities that are now parts of Kenya, and supposedly further south in Mozambique. Captain Vilfredo and the crew of Sailing Yacht Kat will face one of the most difficult stretches of the entire Orient Expedition, but it is through him that they will reach the Atlantic Ocean, the last ocean they will have to cross to return home.