Marieke Huysmans-Berthou on "Lady Flow": Pianocean - sailing around the world with piano
YACHT-Redaktion
· 19.11.2023
"Hello, I'm Marieke, I'm 25 years old and I'd like to buy your boat and build a piano in the aft cabin." Silence falls at the other end of the receiver. Then just a beep. The owner has hung up. Today, the now 35-year-old pianist and singer-songwriter Marieke Huysmans-Berthou travels from port to port on this very sailing boat called "Lady Flow", giving concerts between finger piers and on quay walls. Sometimes in front of 20 people in a remote fishing village, sometimes in front of thousands at a cultural festival.
When she moors in a new place, she stands out. It's not every day that you see a twelve-metre-long, pitch-black two-master, almost reminiscent of a pirate ship. When Marieke pushes a piano from her aft berth up on deck at the touch of a button, her neighbours' eyes widen.
After the previous owner of her boat listened to Marieke's music and realised that her call was not a prank, he called her back and sold her his Freedom 40 steel boat ten years ago. Marieke no longer sails alone on the twelve-tonne, cat-rigged boat, which can reach speeds of up to nine knots. The crew of the "Lady Flow" has grown in recent years: Boyfriend Sebastian Flamin, 49, their son Árann, 5, and cat Seabird have joined them on their round-the-world trips.
A nomadic life at sea was Marieke Huysmans-Berthou's dream
The Frenchwoman was 16 years old when her desire to lead a nomadic life as a musician on the sea began to make bigger and bigger waves. She had no sailing experience and her parents were water-shy to boot.
When she was 20, she picked up the French adventure biography "Damien autour du monde", which she couldn't put down for several days. At the end of the 1960s, two friends built a ten-metre-long wooden boat and sailed 55,000 nautical miles from Spitsbergen to Antarctica within six years. They lived out what the Frenchwoman raved about in her childhood bedroom.
"These guys are the biggest inspiration for travellers at sea. If you meet slightly older French sailors, you can be sure that this book is part of their on-board library," says Marieke, pointing to the book cover behind her, which shows a man on a bow, sailing in drift ice. After reading the book, she contacted Gérard Janichon, the author of the book, and told him about her idea. "I wanted to know if he thought I was crazy, because the people around me did anyway." The cruising sailor didn't think twice: "Vis ton rêve!" said the then 60-year-old to Marieke, "Live your dream!" This marked the beginning of a long-standing friendship between the two sailing enthusiasts.
Marieke Huysmans-Berthou tours Europe with her sailing yacht
"Pianocean" is written on a black board with white chalk, underneath is a sketch of the "Lady Flow", notes fly around it. When the musician begins to play and sing on the stern of her 40-year-old ship, it often becomes whisper-quiet in the harbour basin. Her slightly smoky speaking voice turns into a tender singing voice that is touching. Some listeners have spotted the posters in the city or the board at the harbour, others are lured to the quay wall by the sounds. There are whispers: "Where did that woman in the floor-length yellow dress come from?" And: "Does she always have the piano on board?"
"I find it particularly nice when people discover my concert by chance while strolling along the pier, listen to me for an hour and then come up to me and hug me because it was a nice surprise for them," says Marieke. The cosmopolitan Frenchwoman plans her tours in advance, writing to local authorities, festivals and cultural committees. Ideally, they book her concerts, take care of local advertising and reserve a prominent harbour spot for "Lady Flow". The concerts are free of charge for her audience. "It's important to me that my music is accessible to everyone," she says.
Tour and cruise must go together at Pianocean
One challenge for Marieke is to organise the dates so that there is a suitable sailing route for her family without a zigzag course. A storm has not yet put a spanner in the works of the concert tour. "I'd rather cancel a gig than fight the elements," she says. 50 per cent of her income comes from her fee, 50 per cent from the sale of her CDs after the concerts. "Many people buy my CDs, even though they often don't even own a CD player," she says with a smile. It is probably a reminder of the moment and they know that they are supporting Marieke's musical life at sea with their purchase.
Marieke studied music after school and then toured France with a jazz band. When she had a few weeks off, she took a ferry to the Glénan Islands in Brittany. There she attended sailing school courses. If you look at Marieke from profile - starboard - you will see a tattoo of a Galway Hooker on her neck. She had the traditional Irish sailing boat with one main and two foresails engraved many years ago in Ireland, her favourite country, as a constant reminder of her plans. She wanted to sail the world on a boat like this one day, only she wanted it to be more seaworthy and not made of wood.
At the age of 25, when she first felt ready for her first boat and her independence as a musician, her mobile phone vibrated. "I've found your boat!" it rang through the receiver. Her sailing instructor had discovered the Freedom 40 by chance in a harbour in Brittany and remembered the tattoo and his student's dream.
The Freedom 40 is rare in Europe
If you look at the "Lady Flow" from the outside and compare it with a classic Freedom 40, you will quickly realise that it has two booms! It is originally equipped with so-called wishbones, forked booms that are reminiscent of a windsurfing rig. The double sails are laid around the main and aft mast. A few years ago, Marieke decided to rig two conventional booms and two classic sails instead, as the booms were difficult to handle. Thanks to a roller bearing made of oversized beads, as is familiar from some traditional ships, she can set them on her own. However, the two imposing black carbon fibre masts are still free-standing.
The yachtsman Gary Hoyt founded Freedom Yachts in 1976; all the boats were built by the Tillotson Pearson shipyard in Rhode Island in the USA. They are rare in Europe. Marieke has only ever seen another Freedom 40 off the coast of southern England. On a future tour in the USA, she hopes to spot many more sister ships on the horizon.
The centrepiece of Marieke's yacht: the piano lift
But how can a Feurich 122 piano, which is a good one and a half metres wide and weighs several hundred kilograms, be accommodated on a sailing boat in such a way that it can be transported from the cabin to the deck in the harbour for the stage show? Marieke and a group of crazy creatives, including mechanics, engineers, sailors, boat architects and riggers, racked their brains for months over this question. Led by boat builder Denis Kergomard, who actually specialises in multihulls, they set to work. No one had ever seen or planned a piano lift in a ship's hull before, so the incentive was all the greater.
"It took us months to work out how to raise and lower the piano. In the end, we decided in favour of a mechanical drive instead of a hydraulic one for space reasons. We stripped the piano of its wooden casing and built a carbon body around it to save weight," reports Marieke. Nevertheless, it still weighs 250 kilograms.
They cut a large hole in the deck and built a hatch from the boards. Before Marieke starts her concerts, she opens two heavy hatches; the piano can then be lowered onto the deck in just a few minutes at the touch of a button. Microphone, sound system, piano stool, lights - the floating stage is ready.
The Pianocean concerts are always open air
As with sailing, "Pianocean" is also at the mercy of the elements during their outdoor concerts. If it only drizzles briefly during a concert, Marieke can put a protective cover over her piano. In the past, however, she has had to interrupt concerts during heavy rainfall, especially in Ireland. "Then I say in the middle of a song that I unfortunately have to stop the concert. The crew rushes on deck, dismantles everything, the piano goes down - and au revoir!" Marieke laughs when she talks about such bizarre moments.
After every rainbow, things have always continued. In Norway, playing the keyboard was a challenge for another reason: the cold. Marieke often played with gloves, a hat, scarf and a thick jacket to brave the freezing temperatures. Now she is happy about the south course, which also gives her son more freedom.
A new country is on the Pianocean programme every year
Touring a new country almost every year, as long as she feels like it - that's Marieke's master plan. After two years of boat work, she started in the Mediterranean in 2015, sailed in Brittany from 2016 to 2018, Ireland in 2019, Scotland in 2021 and the Shetland Islands and Norway a year later. The grand finale of her Azores tour recently took place.
After crossings lasting several days, the piano always needs one or two days to acclimatise in the next port
The comfort zone of her keyboard instrument is 50 per cent humidity. However, this did not stop the Frenchwoman from playing on deck while sailing. "The humidity itself is not the problem, but rather large fluctuations in humidity, such as in the Mediterranean region," explains Marieke. To create a suitable microclimate, she has installed two "Piano Life Saver" systems on the piano, which are designed to keep the humidity at a constant 50 per cent. She points to small tubes that wind around the piano like snakes. The systems run continuously when the "Lady Flow" is connected to shore power. After crossings lasting several days, the piano always needs one or two days to acclimatise in the next port - just like the sailing crew. Shortly before each tour, Marieke also tunes her instrument - 88 notes - in an elaborate process that she has learnt from a specialist over the years.
The aft cabin becomes a recording studio
When Marieke and her piano are not in the spotlight on deck, the aft cabin, which occasionally serves as a guest bunk for friends and family, becomes a recording studio for Pianocean. Black tea from Ireland steams on the shelf, Seabird purrs for attention, and Marieke leafs intently through one of her many black notebooks with memories, watercolour paintings and song drafts. She can watch the hustle and bustle of the harbour through the two large windows at the stern. Her songs are inspired by life on board, by the people she meets, by local cultures and stories. Every album she releases is like a musical travel diary.
The songwriter often writes her lyrics in the local languages as a tribute to the places she is travelling to: in Norwegian, Catalan or Irish Gaelic. She gets help from the locals. Sometimes you can hear the wind whistling or seagulls screeching in the background of her songs.
Improvised island tour in Scotland
One of her highlights took place in Scotland. The concert she had planned to give on the Isle of Skye two years ago was cancelled at short notice. Chance then brought the small sailing family to the Isle of Canna, the most westerly of the four Small Isles in the Inner Hebrides. "We moored at the crumbling pier in the fog, walked through the picturesque landscape to the island's only restaurant and told the owner about our bad luck over a beer. He then said: 'If you play a concert here tomorrow, I'll invite all the islanders', and he proudly added: 'There are 19 of us in total'."
The unusual concert actually took place the next evening. All the inhabitants of Canna made a pilgrimage to the jetty. Shortly afterwards, someone from one of the neighbouring islands called in - the island radio did its best. In the end, Marieke gave concerts on all four islands. "Everything was improvised. We grilled freshly caught lobster together on the pier in the evening, got chatting to the locals, everyone brought presents for us and were so happy about the music. It was wonderful," recalls the singer.
After the first concert, Marieke also decided to compose a song about the four islands and dedicate a verse to each one. "I wrote the first verse on Canna. The audience on the second island, the Isle of Eigg, could then listen to two verses and the chorus, and the people on the fourth island, the Isle of Muck, which is the smallest of them all, heard the whole song with a view of the Atlantic," says Marieke.
The "Small Isles Song", which she later recorded for the Pianocean album "Cap au Nord", tells of fishermen, low-hanging clouds and huge colonies of birds.
Pianocean to cross the Atlantic in 2024
The family spends around half the year at sea. In winter, the three of them rent an inexpensive Airbnb in France. The son then swaps boat schooling in the saloon for a school desk in the classroom. And for the "Lady Flow", numerous refits are scheduled every year. Last winter alone, Marieke and Sebastian refurbished the teak deck, renewed the electrical system, overhauled the engine and laid the mast to repair a crack. This year, the boat will remain in the Azores. In 2024, Marieke would like to sail to Madeira and the Canary Islands with her floating stage. After that: Set course for adventure!
The three of them and the crew member on four paws want to make a stopover in Cape Verde, cross the Atlantic to Brazil and then continue northwards via the Caribbean along the Intracoastal Waterway, the 4,800-kilometre-long coastal waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Their destination is Canada.
Marieke is less looking forward to the Atlantic crossing, but all the more to the relaxed coastal sailing. "What I like about sailing is arriving in a new place and meeting new people." One of her first songs, which Marieke composed during a Mediterranean cruise, says: "The ocean reminds you how beautiful the land is."
- Information and tour plans at pianocean.wpcomstaging.com
Text: Katharina Charpian
The author
Freelance journalist Katharina Charpian lives on a sailing boat herself. She happened to moor up next to Marieke and her family in the harbour of Gijón in northern Spain. She portrays even more people who live on their boats in her new book "Boatlife - Life and Freedom on the Water" (Gestalten Verlag, 50 euros).
