Thies Matzen took this photo while becalmed with his wife Kicki Ericson on Wanderer III in the trade wind belt between southern Chile and the Tuamotus. He says “I call it the whale picture because it looks a little bit like the boat is disappearing behind a wave which has the shape of a whale.”
(more…)A small boat keeps the world big and I have always tried to keep the world as big as it possibly can be.
That’s my aim, not a big boat with which you circle the world as quickly as you can.
Thies Matzen / Wanderer III
My dear friend Thies Matzen and his wife Kicki Ericson have sailed 150,000 miles aboard Wanderer III — their 30-foot wooden sloop — much of it through the Southern Ocean. They overwintered at South Georgia Island for two years and sailed to Antarctica on the smallest traditionally planked wooden boat to ever make that voyage.
Click on the player to listen to Thies’ story.
Also on Travel Grit: Sven Yrvind was beaten by his teachers, built a boat in his mother’s basement and sailed into legend. Hear his story.
TranscriptI don’t know who named them swells. There’s nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
Hugo Vihlen
Listen to Sven’s interview on the Travel Grit podcast
Sven Yrvind was beaten by his teachers, locked up for desertion and learned the value of books from a psychopath. Then he built a boat in his mother’s basement and sailed into legend.
Click on the player to listen to Sven’s story.
Also on Travel Grit: Hugo Vihlen crossed the Atlantic in the smallest boat ever to make the crossing. Hear his story.
TranscriptThe Doldrums is a pain for people who are in a hurry. But I am not in a hurry. So everything is so fine.
Sven Yrvind
Listen to Sven’s interview on the Travel Grit podcast
At 62, Hugo Vihlen sailed across the Atlantic in Father’s Day—a boat just 5 feet 4 inches long. He hand-steered through a hurricane, ate quarter rations, and lost a kidney somewhere between Newfoundland and England. His record still stands 30+ years later.
Listen now.
Listen to Hugo’ Vihlen’s extraordinary story here on the Travel Grit podcast.