WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — As everyone prepares to sit down with family and friends for Thanksgiving, one man says he’s thankful to be alive this year.
We first introduced you to Greg Frucci last year, a Wilmington sailor who has defied nature and even death. He risked everything to sail alone hundreds of miles across the Atlantic at the start of hurricane season. Wednesday night, WWAY caught up with him.
Last June, Frucci set sail from Wilmington, headed to Portugal by himself in his thirty-foot sailboat.
“I got to a point in my life where I just wanted to take off,” Frucci says.
But several hundred miles out, Frucci was faced with a bad storm and twenty foot waves. Later he reached Bermuda feeling very lucky.
When he arrived back in Wilmington, Frucci says many who were his friends before drifted away and others said they knew he would fail.
“It effected me definitely but I ignored them,” Frucci says.
Last November Frucci flew back to Bermuda and sailed back to the Port City. But Frucci says he’s not done yet.
“I can’t wait to get back to sea because it’s peaceful out there,” he says.
Frucci says he still plans to sail to Portugal. He has also written a book about his life and travels entitled “Path of Three Hundred.”