Wilts died at home in Heidelberg after a short, serious illness. Last summer, the Wilts were still in Iceland with their "Freydis", from where they had planned to sail home to the North Sea coast. An initial outbreak of illness affected the skipper to such an extent that he and his wife left the "Freydis" to seek treatment at home.
In an interview with YACHT, Wilts then expressed his optimism. Full of zest for action, he talked about planned trips that he wanted to undertake with the repatriated "Freydis" from the North Sea coast.
Unexpectedly quick death came before this and ended an unprecedented sailing life.
After graduating from high school, studying business administration and working as an entrepreneur for many years, Wilts, born in 1942, decided together with his wife of the same age, Heide, who was working as a senior physician at a hospital at the time, to leave the bourgeois life behind and devote himself entirely to ocean sailing.
The travels of Erich and Heide Wilts
From then on, the pair travelled to remote destinations in their self-built yachts "Freydis" I-III. They wrote detailed and professional reports about their journeys in magazines and books. Among other things, they were the first yacht crew to spend the winter in the Antarctic.
- 2020-2021 Round North Atlantic via Greenland to Iceland (black dots)
- 2012-2019 Atlantic, South and North Pacific, Arctic Ocean (red)
- 2004-2010 Atlantic, North Pacific (green)
- 1998-2002 Round the world (green lines)
- 1990-1998 Antarctic circumnavigation (blue)
- 1989 Round Africa (blue lines)
- 1987/88 Round North Atlantic, Arctic Ocean (orange)
- 1986 Round North Atlantic, Arctic Ocean (orange lines)
- 1981/82 Round South America (dark blue)
- 1969 Transatlantic (dark blue lines)
You will soon be able to read a detailed obituary here on YACHT online.
