- When she talks, everyone is quiet
- Cycling through Africa
- The journey really starts at the Cape
- Learning and teaching in the really tough areas
- Places you can only get to on your own keel
- Refit in ice and snow
- 15,000 miles to get used to
- Weight against loneliness
- Relationships are shifting
- Everyday life on board and a rescue
- "Moitessier moments" right to the end
At the end of October, Bobby Schenk organised his 19th and final blue water seminar at the traditional Hanseatic Yacht School in Glücksburg. Also present: the secret star guest Kirsten Neuschäfer. A good 150 sailors came a little closer to the dream of the long voyage with lectures and mutual exchange. Those who needed the final push were given it by Golden Globe winner Kirsten Neuschäfer.
When she talks, everyone is quiet
Experienced circumnavigator Bobby Schenk invited eleven experienced and eloquent speakers on important blue water topics for his last seminar, which we report on in this article. But the top star of the event is undoubtedly Golden Globe winner Kirsten Neuschäfer.
Not that she seems like a star, on the contrary: announced by Bobby Schenk as "the girl from the bush" - he had asked and was allowed to call her that - she stays in the background throughout the meeting until her presentation begins. Anyone who thinks they know everything there is to know about the 43-year-old South African after the extensive coverage on the sidelines of the Golden Globe race will be proven wrong. Schenk also had a hard time reaching her in the run-up to the seminar: she was out walking her dogs - 200 kilometres with a rucksack and tent.
Silence reigns in the room from the very first minute. No one is checking their mobile phones for the latest news or flicking bored through the seminar documents. All eyes are on the petite woman with the blonde curls, who talks animatedly. Not only about the Golden Globe race that made her famous, but also about the unusual path that led her there.
Cycling through Africa
The daughter of a German father and a South African mother spent her childhood and youth in her native South Africa until she went to Finland for two years after finishing school to train sled dogs. She chose to cycle back from Europe to South Africa. "People tried to stop me," she says, "and I thought: they haven't tried it themselves, so they can't know."
A year later, she is standing at the southernmost point of her home country, Cape Angulhas. None of the things that others had previously feared materialised during her extended bike tour. On the contrary: "I had a very enriching time and was happy that I had done what I had dreamed of," she says. "And then I stood there and looked at the two oceans, the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other, and thought 'Now I want to become a sailor so that I can continue travelling but be at sea'."
The journey really starts at the Cape
She is studying for a sailing licence and is looking for sailing opportunities. In her sailing area, this quickly means very challenging trips. "But if you want to work as a sailor and get jobs, you also need the experience. So I asked everywhere whether I could go for a sail to collect these nautical miles."
On one of these trips, they stop off in East London on the way from Durban to Cape Town. "We went to the pub, as one does," she says. There she struck up a conversation with the operator of the local sailing school. "He asked me how much experience I had and I replied: 'None really, I have a coastal licence and nothing else'."
"That's great, I need a sailing instructor, you can start with me tomorrow!" He counters her objection that she is still learning herself with the words: "That's no problem at all, you can teach and learn at the same time."
Learning and teaching in the really tough areas
And she does it like no other. She becomes a sailing instructor and starts with ferry trips of a larger kind. Her first single-handed voyage was the ferry transfer of a ferrocement yacht from Portugal to South Africa. This was followed by transfers from pretty much every corner of the world to another. Those sometimes rough routes that owners don't dare to take and that lead across South Georgia, the Falklands or to deserted islands.
Places you can only get to on your own keel
On one occasion, they travelled to Saint Paul, an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean halfway between South Africa and Australia. The island is nothing more than a volcanic crater rising high out of the sea, which has erupted on one side and has an entrance perhaps a hundred metres wide, which is a daring undertaking even in light winds due to the high swell. They drop anchor in the middle of the crater. They swim ashore. "There were lots of seals swimming with us. They don't recognise humans as enemies and simply accompanied us," she enthuses. They are not granted a longer break, because at night the boat drags at the anchor between the high crater walls in strong downdraughts. They search for the narrow exit in the dark, the light from their powerful torch illuminating hundreds of seal eyes on land. "It's these places that you can't get to otherwise, only by boat, that make sailing so special."
Out there, she is on her own and has to think of everything before she sets sail. Spare propellers and diving equipment included. She has to be as technically adept as she is a sailor. She must also be modest when it comes to comfort, intimately connected to the sea and fearless, even when it is raging. The best prerequisites for starting the loneliest race on earth.
Refit in ice and snow
She chooses the right type of boat: a Cape George 36 - not exactly a racer with an unladen weight of 13 tonnes, but sturdy and reliable. There is one for sale in Newfoundland, Canada. Kirsten is in the area anyway, having sailed up from South Georgia and is actually on her way to Greenland. She takes out a loan and buys the boat. Then comes corona. She is not allowed to go to Kanade for a year; the authorities cannot be convinced of the urgency.
When she is finally allowed to enter, it is December. The boat is iced over. She only sails a few miles to Prince Edward Island before winter puts a spanner in the works. She has to prepare the boat on the spot for the Golden Globe. The small island community is enthusiastic about her unusual plans and does all it can to support her. The "Minnehaha" is transported to a barn on the trailer of a fishing boat and hay bales are used to store the mast. Together with a friend, she works for months to refit and reinforce the boat until she knows every nook and cranny. Every step of the way, she remembers the wise saying of experienced regatta sailors: "The race is won before the start." She replaces the old wooden mast with an aluminium one, but before she puts it up, she practises sailing with a jury rig, because "a broken mast is not unlikely at the Golden Globe."
15,000 miles to get used to
When she is finally able to set sail, it is still so cold that she has to thaw the mooring lines with hot water. She sails non-stop for 56 days to Cape Town. Time to get to know the boat and draw up a list of possible improvements. Just three months later, the journey continues up from there, via the Azores to the regatta mecca of Les Sables-d'Olonne. She and her "Minnehaha" will already have 15,000 solo nautical miles in their wake before the start of the race. She has just under three weeks to finalise her preparations for the race in accordance with the strict rules. She has to stock up on food, books, music cassettes and everything else she could possibly need in months of complete solitude. Modern technology and means of communication are taboo. At least good books and food are allowed.
Weight against loneliness
Austrian Norbert Sedlacek has just had to abandon his fifth attempt to conquer all the oceans non-stop and single-handed and has plenty of supplies that are now going into the "Minnehaha's" lockers. Even better: a French chef supplies them with 100 preserving jars of specially created local cuisine.
Hardcore regatta sailors shake their heads at the extra 100 kilos of weight, Neuschäfer shrugs her shoulders. "My boat has an unladen weight of 13 tonnes, so an extra 100 kilos for the food and 100 books doesn't make any difference," she says with a laugh. On the contrary, both the food and the books were very valuable during the months of loneliness.
Relationships are shifting
When she talks about the race, the relationships of the leisure sailors shift. It starts with a calm, followed by an expected storm. "It was a tropical storm, so it wasn't too bad," she says, describing 40 or 50 knots of wind and lots of rain. At least it filled the canisters. None of the boats could store water for eight months and desalinators or water makers are prohibited. So the water has to be collected, perhaps a little yellowish from the Sahara dust, but at least it is fresh water. This is only used sparingly for drinking and cooking; seawater has to be used for everything else. She shows a film of herself hanging behind the moving boat for the regular bath: "I was just thinking how stupid it would look if I let go now."
Everyday life on board and a rescue
Her everyday life is dominated by a sextant, watch and nautical charts. She hardly has to cook thanks to the good provisions provided by the French cook; her onion supply should arrive almost untouched and safe and sound at the end of the voyage back where she bought it. Occasionally she has to go into the mast under spinnaker and windvane steering, and once deep in the south she has to clear the underwater hull of fouling in the cold water. A good 500 miles off the coast, she rescues Finnish regatta participant Tapio Lehtinen after his boat sinks and he has been drifting in the life raft for 24 hours. He wants no tea and nothing to eat, just a rum. A few days later, he transfers to a freighter and Kirsten Neuschäfer is alone again.
"Moitessier moments" right to the end
When Cape Horn is finally reached, she prepares a lengthy explanation for the radio call to the lighthouse keeper on Cape Horn. But when she radios him, he already answers with "Hello Kirsten". It is this contrast that makes the race a special challenge: the race organisers and the world are keeping an eye on her, she thinks she has been forgotten and is completely alone apart from the occasional radio call. She has her "Moitessier moments", she says in an interview after the race. The worst expression of this is in the Doldrums, when she bobs along for weeks and has dialogues with herself: "Kirsten, we'll be bobbing along here for months, maybe even years!" "Stop it, you're crazy. We'll find the wind!"
She does. She's going home. Nineteen participants have started one of the toughest races around the globe, three of them arrive. She only realises that she is the first of them when she enters the finish harbour. Another surreal moment. The images on the screen and a song written especially for her, which has the name of her boat in the title: "Minnehaha", have a palpable effect.
As she plays it back, one or two tough sailors have to secretly wipe a tear from their cheek. One of them aptly states: "There is no adjective for what you have achieved."
