Mr Paretzke, how did you sail around the Hoorn without a rudder?
I had no idea that I had lost a rudder. But as I was sailing around the world on a catamaran, luckily I still had a "spare rudder" in use. The mishap only came to light when the boat was taken out of the water for maintenance work in Valdivia, Chile. It was then that I realised why "Jonathan" was heaving to the wind and could not be steered by the autopilot. But I can probably claim to have steered the only ship with a dropped rudder around Cape Horn without any problems.
And against the prevailing wind direction. Did you just want to know?
Sailing around the world from Bremerhaven from east to west is the way to go. Wilfried Erdmann, whom I also knew well personally, had confirmed to me in advance that you can sail around there without any problems.
According to his book "Alone against the wind", however, he also suffered in the process ...
Yes, of course. We also had big waves, but never any fear or problems. Bobby Schenk was convinced that you should only sail a cat at the equator or up to 30 degrees north or south of it. I convinced him otherwise, which is why he recently awarded me his Cape Horn pin. Although I think Cape Farewell in the south of Greenland is far more challenging.
But this is not on the classic circumnavigation route ...
No, in the course of a later Atlantic tour I sailed via Halifax to Nuuk in Greenland, where my crew disembarked due to the cold. I then sailed single-handed round Cape Farewell to Iceland. The Icelandic lows are just as violent as the storms at Hoorn, but there are also icebergs, growlers and lots of fog. Catabatic winds of 300 km/h come out of nowhere.
Do you also sail monohulls or only multihulls?
Before I bought "Jonathan", I skippered the 12mR "Anita" for many years. Back then without an engine, electrics or radar. We once sailed as far as Spitsbergen using only cross bearings. But it was such a thick soup there that we had to turn round again without being able to go ashore. That was quite an adventure!
You have an impressive sailing CV. Will you be going ashore for good soon?
I sold my well-earned offshore catamaran to a marine biologist, but I still have a kite from 1979 on Lake Starnberg, which I use regularly in the summer. A completely different treasure is waiting for me on land: a 97-year-old car. A beautiful Buick with wooden wheel spokes, which also needs a lot of love and care.
