Last Monday, one of Germany's great long-distance sailing pioneers succumbed to a serious illness at the age of 89. Eberhard "Hein" Zenker, born near Dresden, died in his adopted American home. For many decades, he had lived with his wife Sigrid ("Siggi") in a small, self-built wooden house in the middle of the Virginia woods, close to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
For a long time, Hein and Siggi Zenker were completely unknown to the German sailing world, despite their first achievement. And yet they had achieved something great in the years 1963 to 66: they had sailed around the world in a wooden boat just 22 feet long. No German had ever achieved this with a yacht. It was only a year later that Elga and Ernst-Jürgen Koch completed their circumnavigation with the "Kairos", but it is they who are generally credited with this pioneering voyage. It was only when YACHT reported on the Zenkers in 2010 that their names became known to a wider audience. The fact that they were so forgotten is probably due to the fact that they had already left Germany at the time of the voyage and built a new life for themselves in Canada.
Hein and Siggi Zenker emigrated to Canada independently of each other in the early 1950s in search of happiness and freedom. Neither of them spoke English yet, but the country beckoned with well-paid work and many opportunities for a self-determined life. Hein Zenker found work as a lumberjack in the Canadian forests, his future wife as a nurse. After Hein was injured at work, he met the young German woman there in hospital, an adventurous girl from his home country. And it wasn't long before he let her in on his biggest dream: "Siggi, we have to build a sailing boat and sail around the world."
In the summer of 1963, the small "Thlaloca" was launched in San Francisco Bay. A marvellous and wooden design by Laurent Giles, which had already proven its seaworthiness with the round-the-world voyage of the young John Guzzwell and "Trekka". The pair sailed around the world for three years and set course for Canada again at the end of the voyage in 1966. The "Thlaloca" was not only the first yacht of German circumnavigators, but also the first to carry the new Canadian flag with the maple leaf around the world.
The small boat had done so well on the long journey that the couple even sailed across the Atlantic again in the following years and through the North Sea to Germany. From there, the journey took them on the inland waterway to Münster, Siggi's home. However, the small Seagull outboard proved too weak for the Rhine, so they had to be towed most of the time. The couple reached the Mediterranean via the canals.
On the way back to the Caribbean and via the Bahamas to the USA, the small "Thlaloca" was heavily laden. In addition to the construction plans for a new 40-foot wooden ship, many fittings and shrouds also travelled on the small boat to the USA. On the edge of the Chesapeake Bay, the couple were finally warmly welcomed in a sailing club, found work and soon afterwards a building site. This is where their "Thlaloca Dos" was to take shape.
The new ship offered much more living space and opened up completely new possibilities. Europe was once again the destination on the bow, from Scotland to far into the Mediterranean. It was not until 1990 that the couple settled down and finally dropped anchor in the USA. But they never tired of travelling. Again and again, their course took them up and down the east coast of the USA, and they travelled the interior of the USA and Canada in their camper van.
When I started working for YACHT in autumn 2009, I stumbled across a mention of a round-the-world trip from the USA on the small, 22-foot "Thlaloca" while researching a completely different story. I immediately noticed the German names and started digging further. And I found the address of Hein Zenker, sent him an e-mail and soon received a reply in English. But yes, they sailed their boat around the world a long time ago, but are actually from Germany. Hein told me their whole story, which I eventually used to write the YACHT article entitled "The forgotten circumnavigators". But unfortunately we never met back then.
Until the summer of 2015, when we had sailed across the Atlantic with our sailing boat and wanted to spend the hurricane season in the sheltered north of the USA. And so it was that we found a permanent mooring just an hour's drive from Siggi and Hein Zenker. I still had their e-mail address and they were delighted to read about us. They wanted us to come round and ideally stay the night.
A few days later, we knocked on the door of a wonderful little, typically American white wooden house. Hein and Siggi greeted us in German and gave us a warm welcome. While Hein had become accustomed to rolling the "R" in a very soft and American way over his many decades in the USA, you could still clearly hear Siggi's German accent even after so many years. "We used to speak almost exclusively English among ourselves," Hein explained, "but now that we're older, we often speak German again. Somehow our origins are coming back to life."
Their house was a fascinating museum of nautical artefacts for me. Hein took me through all the rooms, explaining pictures, books and souvenirs from all over the world. I could hardly get enough of looking and listening to all the objects and memories from her life. During dinner, Siggi reached into the shelf and pulled out a guest book from her circumnavigation. I wanted to put on cotton gloves, as one does with valuable books, because the book was actually a misappropriated calendar from 1943 and filled with dozens of signatures and kind words from sailing pioneers from all over the world - people I only knew from sailing history books. Hein and Siggi had an anecdote to tell about each entry. And they always ended with a slightly resigned "We met him back then. Now he's already dead."
Yes, we realised one thing: Hein and Siggi were the last of a generation of sailors and adventurers who are becoming rare today. People who, full of a thirst for adventure and without the security of GPS, fully comprehensive insurance and satellite phones, set off on journeys that only a handful before them had dared to undertake and even fewer had survived. People who have achieved great things and whose experiences and adventures have made them who we are today. Valuable acquaintances.
A short time later, we moved our boat not far from their house and visited Hein and Siggi almost every day. The two of them became like second grandparents to us. While my wife Cati did housework with Siggi or attended cultural events in the village, Hein and I often sat over old nautical charts, daydreaming and raving about where they had anchored their boat, how the world had changed and where we still had to sail. Or we tried to repair his old cars in the garden. Hein always amazed me with how curious and interested he still was despite his advanced age. "Can you give me a hand? I'd like to read out the fault memory on the car, but since I installed Windows 8, it no longer recognises the interface." And that at the age of 80! But it was probably the travelling that kept him enjoying life and his curiosity well into old age.
Every summer we set our course from the Bahamas to the Chesapeake Bay, well over 1000 miles to summer camp. There would have been closer destinations outside the hurricane zone ... But we were always happy to sail up to Siggi and Hein, to finally see them again. And the two of them too. Probably, as they once said, because they often recognised themselves in us - themselves 60 years ago, young and adventurous.
And felt the same way. We, on the other hand, saw them as role models for what we would like to be in 60 years' time. Sailors with a wealth of experience. And as human beings: impressive, but modest.
Over the past few years, the two have repeatedly talked about new trips with their "Thlaloca Dos", which they still had moored at the jetty. "I'd like to go on one more little trip," said Siggi in the summer of 2015, but they both realised that a new trip would be difficult. And dangerous, because Siggi had a weak heart. And so Hein slowly began selling off his boat equipment a few years ago. He advertised on eBay, but often did not limit himself to the product description alone, but told a story about each item. About his sextant, for example, how he bought a set of nautical charts from a man in his late 80s in the Mediterranean many decades ago. "He told me: 'If you sell your nautical charts, your journey is over. And that's how I feel when I sell my sextant."
When we sailed our boat into the Chesapeake Bay two years ago, Siggi was getting worse and worse, and before we knew it, we were sitting by her deathbed. She remained lucid and happy until the end, even though she was aware that she would soon die. And then something happened that we will never forget. Her last words to us were a look back: "It was a good life. Rich in experiences. Full of adventure." And then her tired eyes lit up again for a brief moment and she added with a happy smile: "And full of danger."
Exactly two years later to the day, Hein also succumbed to a serious illness. The last pioneer of a distant generation of sailors and adventurers has passed away, an impressive person and a good friend. We are glad that we were able to spend the last few years with him and spend a few months each year with our boat in his neighbourhood.
A friendship that has enriched our lives - and will continue to do so forever. Hein, you will always be in our hearts. And we hope that we will be just as happy as you and Siggi for the rest of our lives. And above all, that we will have the same sparkle in our eyes at the end. We will miss you both.
You can read a portrait of Hein Zenker in the YACHT magazine download here for free...
