Traces of one of the greatest German sailing adventures are sparse. There is no mention of the voyage of the Kiel yacht "Te Rapunga" in German sailing literature. And even YACHT, the chronicle of German sailing, has hardly any stories to tell about it. The only mention is in issue 22/1924, when a young boat builder named Günther Niemeyer from Kiel drew a sketch of a beautifully shaped pointed batten and laid the keel in Schwerin. That was almost 100 years ago. A little later, in 1930, "Te Rapunga" left the Kiel Fjord with her 41-year-old skipper and owner Georg Dibbern.
In the spring of 1934, YACHT reported "an extraordinarily great achievement". In the meantime, "Te Rapunga" had been re-rigged as a ketch and had reached San Francisco in California after 30,000 nautical miles in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific. Georg Dibbern's first landfall after 101 days at sea since Panama was the St Francis Yacht Club, right next to an annoying and noisy construction site. Years later, this would become the Golden Gate Bridge. "We will hopefully soon be able to read more details from Captain Dibbern himself here," the article in YACHT ends. After that, you never read about "Te Rapunga" again. Dibbern logged over 100,000 nautical miles before his death in 1962. But neither he nor his boat ever returned home. Yet his story is one of the most exciting in German sailing.
The intimate relationship with water
Georg Dibbern, who later called himself George, grew up around the turn of the century not far from the Kiel Fjord and had an intimate relationship with the water from an early age through his father, captain of a large sailing ship in the China Sea. Immediately after leaving school, he signed on to the P-Liner "Pamelia" and sailed for several years until he disembarked in Sydney to start a new life. He works in construction, as a dishwasher, acrobat and canoe salesman before moving to New Zealand, where he works as a beekeeper and driver for the Maori - until the First World War reaches even the remote islands of the Pacific. As a possible spy, he is first interned and then shipped back home together with Count von Luckner.
Once there, Dibbern starts a family and becomes the father of three daughters. His life seemed to be mapped out. He buys a farm in Schleswig-Holstein and works as a farmer. But the sea never lets him go. It wasn't long before he set sail on his pointed rig "Te Rapunga". The boat was designed and built by the brother of his childhood friend. The name means "longing" in the Maori language. The destination of his journey is to be the land of his longing: New Zealand. The place where he feels the least restricted.
Georg Dibbern has followed his path
Dibbern left his family behind in Germany, despite high inflation and political turmoil. Cold-hearted, but with full conviction that he was doing the right thing, following a predetermined path, a task. On board the boat instead are his nephew Günter Schramm, known as "the mate", and a friend, Dorothée Leber von Fritsch, known as Doe, who, with her aristocratic origins and background, provides a little help to finance the journey.
Cash is always tight in times of inflation, and so Dibbern occasionally takes paying guests on board. But after two years of charter trips in the Mediterranean, he and Schramm finally set course west, for the Atlantic, in autumn 1932.
The crossing to Jamaica is uneventful. The wind comes from astern, the ship largely steers itself, and Dibbern enjoys simply sitting in the cockpit, looking out to sea and pondering his thoughts. He has always had a philosophical view of life, but now he enjoys questioning habitual behaviour. "On land, I was always restless and on the move, never able to sit and think about life," he writes during the Atlantic crossing, "Sitting seemed like a waste of time to me. But here at sea ... what else could I do?"
Experience more with the "Te Rapunga" from the USA
Te Rapunga" reaches Panama via Jamaica and crosses the canal. When he got to know the city of Cristóbal on the US side, Dibbern was keen to experience more of the USA. "What if we just sail north after the canal? To California?" Dibbern asks his mate. "If we assume 100 miles a day, we should be at sea for 32 days," Dibbern calculates optimistically. Secretly, the pair hope to be in Los Angeles in time for the Summer Olympics. "There are supposed to be a lot of lulls around Panama," notes Dibbern, "so it could be 40 days. Let's assume 50 instead. Or maybe 60 if we have a headwind." Dibbern recalculates. "To be on the safe side, we'll provision ourselves for 70 days." "Te Rapunga" sets sail on Sunday, 12 June 1932. Seven weeks before the start of the Summer Games.
But even at the beginning, progress is slow, with doldrums surrounding the ship day after day and causing it to roll violently in the heavy swell. "Only 70 miles in two days," notes Dibbern, "The deck is as hot as a hob and even steams when we drip water on it." Three days later, the situation has not improved. "30 miles in 24 hours. I don't know why we're moving, it can't be the wind." Every day, Dibbern has to repair the strained mainsail, which flaps in the swell and constantly tears again.
Only after two weeks at sea is the weather kind to the two sailors. The wind returns and "Te Rapunga" can log acceptable distances again. After days in the tropical heat, the deck of the wooden boat is full of leaks and drips into the bunks. The weather is getting rougher, strong gusts are coming in. The hurricane season has begun and there is constant tension in the air.
Unstable weather conditions at sea
On 23 July, "Te Rapunga" is once again bobbing in the doldrums. "Turtles swim around us like capsized laundry tubs," notes Dibbern. But he savours every moment, feels completely decelerated and even talks about how he could sail like this forever. Day after day, he ponders his thoughts, reflects on life and formulates his reflections and realisations in his logbook, from which his book "Quest" emerges many years later.
After two months at sea, however, the supplies have run out. "Even the cockroaches are getting slimmer and slimmer," notes Dibbern.
At the same time, the sea begins to challenge them once again. Headwind. For days on end. The course to the finish is almost impossible to maintain. "Te Rapunga" crosses. For weeks on end. "We are no longer on a pleasure cruise here. This journey has become a stage in our lives," notes Dibbern. "This stage is a test, a trial. My senses are wide awake and sharpened, because we have to survive this test. So that we can look back later and say: We didn't give up. We conquered the sea."
Top sporting performance from Georg Dibbern and Schramm
When he writes this, the Olympic Games have already been over for a fortnight. The newspapers in Los Angeles have long been reporting on other things. But Dibbern and Schramm are performing a sporting feat of their own: keeping the ship on course, persevering and making do with the remaining food.
While tidying up, Dibbern finds an old bag of dried peas. "They must have been on board since Gibraltar," he writes. But all attempts to soak them in water and make them edible fail.
A few days later, Dibbern finds his old coffee grinder and has a brilliant idea: he grinds the hard peas into powder and uses it to make a tasty pea soup. "We now stretch the meals out over two hours so that we only have 22 hours until the next one."
But despite all the hardships, Dibbern is completely at peace with himself and his journey. On his 98th day at sea, he writes: "What do people know about freedom on the seas? It's a feeling that no one can describe in words. You can only experience it. Oh how happy this journey has made me." One day later: "99 days at sea. If we still had food, we could sail straight back to Panama. Everything on board is wet and smelly. But what does that matter? We have 'lived'. I am full of deep joy. When will we ever live so intensely again? And what are the Olympic Games compared to this experience?"
The centrepiece of the legendary journey
Two days later, "Te Rapunga" moors in San Francisco. "Is this stage possibly a symbol of my life, my future?" Dibbern asks himself in the logbook, "A sign that I can overcome all obstacles?" The sea route from Panama to San Francisco will remain the centrepiece of Dibbern's legendary journey, which will continue for another three decades. During these 101 days non-stop at sea, he has come to realise many things. Above all: It is his mission to continue sailing around the world as an ambassador of the seas.
First, however, Georg Dibbern continued his journey after a major refit of the boat, reaching Hawaii and then the former German Samoa. As the skipper of a German yacht, he is expected to fly the new German flag with the swastika as the national flag. But he refuses and keeps the old one instead - because he has nothing to do with the politics of his homeland.
Georg Dibbern was a "citizen of the world and friend to all peoples"
A few years later, after reaching New Zealand and continuing his journey to Canada, Dibbern would even go so far as to design his own flag and continue his journey with it. In 1940, when Germany had long since attacked Poland and the reputation of a German in the world had sunk even further, Dibbern finally even designed his own passport. "I, George Dibbern," he explains in it, "after many years in different countries and in the closest friendships with people from all over the world, see my place outside of any nationality, as a citizen of the world and friend of all peoples."
His plan to sail around the world, free of all nationality, only partially succeeds: A short time later, in 1941, Dibbern was arrested again as a possible spy in New Zealand. While he was in prison, his first and only book "Quest" was published in the USA, which the writer Henry Miller read and highly honoured Dibbern. "The long journey is not an escape, it is a quest. The man is looking for a way in which he could be of use to the world. Only when he reaches his destination does he realise what his task in life is, 'to be a bridge of goodwill'. That is Georg Dibbern and more," writes Miller. A pen friendship develops from this contact. Miller stood up for Dibbern's family in Germany and supported them during the war years.
Adventures under your own flag
When Georg Dibbern was released from captivity in 1946, he immediately set sail and continued to cruise the Pacific for almost two decades. He took part in the race to Tasmania several times, broke his mast twice and ran aground. However, his run of luck did not end, he even won the Australian Lottery and bought a small island off Tasmania, which he farmed for three years. Dibbern begins to write another book about his adventures under his own flag.
As the now 73-year-old made his way to the letterbox in June 1962, he suffered a heart attack - and died. Friends find a letter in his pocket in which he tells his wife Elisabeth about his plans to set sail on "Te Rapunga" one last time. Towards home. To "close the circle" and see his family again after 32 years.
"Te Rapunga"
- Year of construction:1923
- Length:9,8 m
- Width: 3,3 m
- Depth: 1,5 m
- Displacement:unknown
- Ballast:3 t
- sail area: 70 square metres
- Refit:denmanmarine.com.au
SPITZGATT-KETSCH: "Te Rapunga" was built in Schwerin to a design by naval architect Günther Niemeyer. The hull is made of oak with a pitch pine deck. During the voyage, Dibbern converted the boat into a ketch
Books about Dibbern
The book "Quest" by George Dibbern was published in New York in 1941 and reissued in 2008. It tells the story of the voyage from Kiel to New Zealand between 1930 and 1934. It was translated into German in 1965 and published by Claassen Verlag under the title "Unter eigener Flagge - Im Segelboot über die Meere der Welt". The book does not deal with the own flag. The Canadian Erika Grundmann has researched Dibbern's footsteps. Her biography "Dark Sun", in which Dibbern's complete life story can be read on 544 pages, was published in 2004. Both books can be ordered in English.
- Further information is available at: georgedibbern.com
