Stories of sea and land
REYKJA carries AIS, Automatic Identification System. A transponder sends the data of my position. Vice versa, I see the positions of other ships, their names, speed, size, and much more. If I collide in the near future, the AIS will buzz poisonously, and tells me when and where it will be. This has advantages – … Read more
Two months in Algés, three days in Lagos, two weeks Almerimar. I didn’t seek the places I would end up in. The ship decides. It requires shipyard, locksmith, rigger, electrician. REYKJA dictates the course of the journey. I’m just getting washed up. Lisbon Algés is a district of Lisbon. There is no tram line 28E, … Read more
This is the minimum requirement for sailing pensioners: that they cross an ocean. At least one. Better three, then they could call themselves circumnavigator. This simple world looks much more complicated with a damaged ship and broken self-confidence. Already the crossing of the Bay of Biscay seems to me like a summit tour, three days … Read more
It’s quiet. The engine is switched off. No breeze curls the water. Reykja drifts across the dark ocean. I want to sleep for a few hours. Suddenly a deep snout. Then breaths from everywhere. It knocks me over. I’ve seen dolphins in the past few days. Hearing them is something completely different. With my eyes, … Read more
A travel must contain dramas. Why else should we have started? Ideally, the dramas come well-dosed. Here a missing sap, there a clogged filter. If many dramas occur at once, the traveler switches to survival mode. Eyes closed and get through. When everything is over, he or she may realize: I am traumatized. These were … Read more
Sail a fully rigged yacht over Dutch fields. Pass through more than fifty bridges. Cross the city centres of Groningen, Leeuwarden and Amsterdam. Look down on highways. Enjoy locks until falling over. We hadn’t planned this tour. But a storm was in the making, the North Sea did not seem a good place to be. … Read more
Big circumnavigators start in full stress. When Wilfried Erdmann picks up his Kathena Nui from the shipyard in August 1984, it is nothing more than a casco, a hull. Two months later, he starts fully equipped for the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world of a German. Donald Crowhurst is less happy. The Golden Globe … Read more
Practise blue water sailing: I want to sail long stretches in a row, anchor or let the ship drift. Only call at harbours, if necessary marinas, when electricity or food is scarce. Northernmost destination this summer are the sperm whales off Vesteraalen / Norway When I cast off from Burgstaaken, the plotter does not start. … Read more
Yes, dinghy and catamaran I have sailed from time to time. But no, I had no idea how to sail a yacht. In 2015 I set my foot on the first sailing ship that does not capsize immediately upon entering. 1000 obligatory Swiss-Offshore-Certificate-Miles later I know three yacht types after all: Hallberg-Rassy, Alubat Ovni, X-Yacht, … Read more
Twelve meters of steel, two masts, one ketch. Fifty years ago, the ideal blue-water yacht looked like this, the legendary JOSHUA by Bernard Moitessier for example. Today, the Ketch-Rigg is out of fashion, as are long keel and rudder skeg. PINJOE – built thirty years ago – has all the attributes of these classic sailors. … Read more