Mrs Wilts, when you compare your early sailing years with the later ones: What has changed physically or mentally over time?
Erich and I travelled the oceans for 50 years - always together, always a team, through thick and thin. Sailing developed into a lifestyle for us that we lived intensively. But it wasn't entirely stress-free: We experienced tropical diseases, fires on board, the loss of our "Freydis", typhoons, ice pressures and much more.
Nevertheless, the challenges still thrilled us at the age of 75. Until a few years ago, we spent nine to ten months a year on board our "Freydis". In recent years, we reduced this to around four months - that's how long the sailing season was in the polar region of Alaska and the Northwest Passage. The rest of the time we spent in Germany, where we always kept our permanent residence. A place we could return to in an emergency. Knowing that was especially important in old age.
Aids for sailing in old age
Have you modified anything on board that has made handling and life below deck easier?
After losing our old "Freydis" in Fukushima, we managed to build a new one together in our early 70s. As we got older, we found the spartan lifestyle difficult. Doing without comfort took its toll. We took that into account when building the new house.
However, we only installed a few major power guzzlers: Autopilot, fridge and freezer - that's it. No washing machine, electrical kitchen appliances or Inmarsat equipment. We followed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who once said: "Technical perfection is not achieved when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be left out."
What was most important to you in terms of equipment?
It was important for us to retain our independence in old age, because faults in complicated systems can rarely be rectified by ourselves. The do-it-yourself method was often tedious, but proved its worth to the end. In the last few years, we bought a sat-phone. We used it to receive weather data at sea and were able to make phone calls or send short emails in special cases.
Heide Wilts also reports on other experiences in her new book "Lichter am Horizont", Ihleo Verlag, 480 pages.
More about Heide and Erich Wilts read also here.
Communication can be a blessing in emergencies.
For us, it was when we had to dodge typhoons in Micronesia and Japan or download ice data during the Northwest Passage.
How did your motivation for the challenging trips change?
At first, we were driven by sporting ambitions, curiosity and a thirst for adventure. This changed as we got older. Experiencing nature became more and more important, as did the joy of sharing our experiences with friends and fellow sailors. And of course our hobbies also played a role: Erich took photographs, I wrote.
Our "heartlands" therefore remained the Antarctic and Arctic regions even in old age. But of course we also loved the "sunny side of sailing" that the South Seas offered us. We stayed there several times - for many years if you add it up.
Helpful properties
You once said that your seasickness diminished with age. Suppose you could have two characteristics at the same time, one from your younger years and one from your later years: Which trait would you choose?
Even in old age, we retained our enthusiasm. However, our physical strength and agility decreased significantly - and, fortunately, so did our susceptibility to seasickness. I would have given a lot if that had happened earlier. Because we both suffered from it, but I suffered more than Erich.
How did you deal with it when you had doubts about the realisation of your ambitious trips?
Although in poor health, my skipper wanted to embark on another strenuous sailing trip - nothing and nobody could dissuade him, not even me. That went wrong. Erich had to be flown out to Germany. It was the end of our sailing life.
About the decision to quit
You were 80 years old at the time. How did you come to this decision back then?
Erich's illness kept me busy for months. At the same time, my sister was dying. The decision to sell our "Freydis" was a difficult one - it was also associated with sadness. But that's how it is in old age:
You have to learn to cope with loss and somehow manage on your own.
Have there been moments in the past when you thought about quitting - or at least wanted to scale back your cruising plans?
In recent years, sailing has taken its toll on us. Constantly on our guard, constantly on the move, constantly living out of our kitbag. Then suddenly we had new, unexpected experiences: Erich's cardiac arrhythmia and pacemaker, my back operation. All of this was a threat and a certainty that we couldn't go on like this for much longer. We had to economise with our strength.
So we only planned a year in advance. We were no longer as adaptable, no longer as tolerant as before - living closely with the crew took a lot of energy. That's why we wanted more time for ourselves, less time pressure, to sail as the mood took us. But that never happened. Instead came cancer, then death. Erich was 80 when he died. He would have loved to have sailed even further.
Finally, what advice does the doctor Heide Wilts give?
In my experience, you shouldn't sail too far from the hospital from the age of 75. But who wants to hear that as long as the enthusiasm lasts?
More on the topic:
Ursula Meer
Redakteurin Panorama und Reise
