Imagine living for 50 years. How many things happen in such a long time! From first steps or initial experiences to great challenges, choices, mistakes, loneliness, and shared moments. In so many years, you find yourself in the most unusual places, almost asking yourself “What am I doing here?” Then come returns, periods of calm, new beginning…

Now, think about what 50 years mean for a boat, built and launched in the southwest of France by some of the greatest sailors and designers of the time and of all time. Born under the best auspices, then untied from its moorings to sail everywhere, year after year, sea after sea… finding itself so many times in remote places, with ever-changing crews, witnessing thousands and thousands of perfect or rough days, and the most incredible, known, and always new stories.

In this 2025, MEDITERRANEA (formerly: Ship Happens), the boat of the Project born in 2012 and still at sea, turns FIFTY. We share only a part of its long life with this boat, namely its last twelve years (thirteen since the project conception), so we weren’t with her when she crossed the Atlantic twice or when she pretended to sail in the Ionian. But what years these have been together! Just under thirty thousand miles everywhere, in every corner of the Mediterranean, and again in the Atlantic, and first in the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, from the Middle East to Gibraltar, from the Gulf of Lion to the Gulf of Sirte, from Anatolia to the Maghreb, from the Balkans to all the small and large archipelagos of our sea. A story of over a thousand passionate people who boarded and sailed miles with her. A story of ideas, projects, thus dreams and hopes turned into commitment, work… Life.

It seems natural, indeed necessary, to celebrate this half-century of life for a splendid boat that knows how to sail and that, for so many of us, is truly home.

Between June 14 and 16, on the Greek island of Kythira, we will celebrate together. When the sea is involved, dates are always a bit vague, we know. If the weather helps us, the party will be on June 15 at 6:00 PM, but we allow ourselves a bit of leeway in those three days to ensure organization (days before, we will give precise confirmation, but in any case, we will be there celebrating during those days). You can reach the island by plane from Athens or by ferry from Piraeus. If you book in advance, it’s not even that expensive.

But either way, we await you. The whole world that today has to do (recently or still) with Mediterranea, directly or indirectly, for hoped-for love or lived love, about to embark or in the memory of days together, will be there.

We await you. Come with a bottle. And with a great desire to celebrate a Lady boat, to whom we wish a world of good.

Associazione Progetto Mediterranea ETS