Their 30th birthday was to be the start of a new, adventurous life. Back then, five years ago now, Paulina Lewandowski and Mathias Salomon cast off from Flensburg to sail around the world. Not because they didn't like their jobs in the start-up environment in Berlin and Munich, quite the opposite. "It went great!" says Mathias, who had known since crossing the Atlantic as an 18-year-old that he wanted to spend a lot of time on the water later on.
With the idea of sailing around the world, he opens the door to his girlfriend. They bought the first boat they inspected, a Reinke 13M with a long track record. "I didn't know my way around, but I thought it was an expedition boat that could take us anywhere." They quit their jobs, refit for a few months and set off in May 2019.
Since then, the couple have sailed halfway around the world, setting up their own business while travelling and advising other company founders on board about their unusual lifestyle. In an interview with YACHT, the two from Tahiti talk about the growing opportunities to work from a boat office while travelling, video conferencing with obstacles and the ups and downs of life as digital nomads under sail.
YACHT: Your journey began very differently than planned and almost failed after three months. Why was that?
Mathias Salomon: We thought our savings would last for a year. But three months later it was used up. When we bought the Reinke, we had an expert opinion drawn up. But it was only on the way to Portugal that we realised how much additional work needed to be done to the boat. In Portimão, we realised that the starboard keel, the water and the diesel tank had to be refurbished and the boat had to be taken out of the water for this. A week was planned, but it turned out to be several months. In hindsight, however, this was the turning point for our lives today: We opened our laptops again and started taking on projects and jobs as freelancers to earn money.
Was it as easy as it sounds now?
Mathias: We had already toyed with the idea during our time as employees and had built up a strong network. We were able to activate this quickly. It then continued via word-of-mouth recommendations. We now do this full-time.
I wanted to go somewhere beautiful, where I could meet exciting people and experience new adventures every day. I wanted a floating office"
How did you even come up with the idea of ditching your careers on land, getting on a boat and just sailing off?
Mathias: We didn't leave because we wanted an exit or needed a break. On the contrary, I had a great team, enjoyed my job and had found my place of work. I wanted to take that with me in terms of content anyway. But I wanted to pack it into an environment where I could be in super beautiful places, surround myself with exciting people and experience new adventures every day. I wanted a floating office.
Paulina Lewandowski: I don't come from a sailing background, but it was always clear to me that I wanted to be out in nature, live an adventurous life and discover new things. I wanted to go on a longer trip anyway. That became the boat trip together.
How do you work in the Boat Office, together or separately?
Mathias: We are both management consultants, but we have different companies and clients. We try to help each other progress and are also work colleagues.
Paulina: We very rarely get on each other's nerves spatially, even though we work less than five metres apart. I think our 13-metre boat is huge. We only use the rear berth when we have visitors.
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What does your everyday life look like?
Paulina: Here in French Polynesia, we have a twelve-hour time difference to Europe. That's why our day starts at 4.30 am. We both try to get a reasonable amount of sleep, but we are flexible. Of course, this sometimes leads to a lack of sleep. But we enjoy what we do so much that it gives us more energy than it takes away.
Mathias: Many people think we sit on the beach all day with a cocktail - that's definitely not the case! I get up at four o'clock and the calls start at 4.30 am. We talk to customers until eight o'clock in the morning, which is eight o'clock in the evening in Germany. Then the customer goes to bed and we have breakfast. We continue to develop our content until lunch, with a bit of sport and sleep in between. In the afternoon, we work until five o'clock. Then we go hiking, freediving, swimming, meet other sailors or do something cultural. The next calls come in the evening. That's our mode when the ship isn't moving.
And when you're sailing?
Mathias: We only hold meetings on the road in exceptional cases. When we are travelling, we are sometimes not available for a week.
Paulina: As self-employed consultants, we have the advantage of being able to coordinate flexibly. This is probably more difficult in an employee relationship.
Mathias:Our customers know what we do - and that it can happen that I jump on a call. But that's never an excuse for us. I've never missed a meeting. Or have you! Once we were rammed at anchor. And once we had to help a friend salvage her boat from the beach. I wasn't available for two days. But companies are very open to our way of working. It even inspires them. We often talk about our life model with customers who have the same dream. Only then do we get down to the actual topic.
You have now moved your boat, and therefore your mobile workplace, to a marina in Tahiti for the first time in a long time. Is it better to work in the harbour or at anchor?
Paulina: At anchor! More wind blows through the boat. Our favourite anchorage is on Tahiti's neighbouring island of Moorea. It's perfect there: a sheltered spot, beautiful water and a great island.
Mathias: But here in the marina we enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of water from the tap, rubbish bins on the jetty and a supermarket round the corner. I haven't used the dinghy for a week now.
So far you have followed the barefoot route. Can you also imagine living on board in cold regions and working at the same time?
Paulina: I could well imagine an excursion into the ice lasting several months. But for working, the combination of anchoring in the warmth, where you can jump into the water and move around outside in between, is unbeatable. I think we're more in favour of swimming trunks and bikinis.
Mathias: In the cold, life on board would be even more complex. On the other hand, you can't be too distracted by the beautiful surroundings here in the warmth! That's why we always have guests on board to get into routines.
Doesn't a visit bring even more distraction?
Mathias: No, that's great and has the positive side effect that we then tidy up and clean the boat(laughs)!We are not holiday organisers or entertainers. Founders or people who want to work on a project or explore new topics come to us for several weeks. So far, it's been friends or friends of friends. But we're expanding this in 2024: during the day, everyone works on their own, and in the evening we organise workshops on different topics that interest us and help us move forward, each from their own specialist area. It's like a floating co-working space - probably the most remote in the world. This rhythm keeps us from hanging out and prevents days from turning into weeks, weeks into months and months into years.
Nevertheless, you have been travelling much longer than initially planned. Do you still have an address in Germany?
Paulina: We only have a postal address with our parents, otherwise we are deregistered in Germany and completely at home on the boat. When we are in Germany, we stay with family or friends. We are very cosmopolitan: I was born in Poland, Mathias is Austrian and we met in Germany. We can definitely imagine settling down in Portugal later on or staying in French Polynesia and setting up a land base there. We consider ourselves lucky to be able to say that this is not a journey, but our way of life. We live on the boat and earn our money here. And I am convinced that anyone can do that.
But it's certainly easier to work remotely in some professions than in others, isn't it?
Paulina: That's right, that's one of the reasons why we work in the digital environment. But it also works offline. Especially if you are a talented craftsman, you can go a long way in remote places. It is then important to network locally in the marina and with other sailors.
Do you have an example?
Mathias: We met a 25-year-old who has been travelling for seven years. He either travels with local fishermen, works as a musician or does anything else that gets him ahead. But he is not a classic day labourer. He could also work digitally. What's important is his basic trust in his own abilities.
Paulina: What is needed is courage, ambition and entrepreneurial thinking. We meet many people who work as freelancers, Instagrammers or Youtubers. Others earn their money with boat charters. But unfortunately, we hardly ever meet founders in the digital sector. Most of the entrepreneurs we meet have already swapped their business for a nice sailing boat.
The be-all and end-all for your job in the mobile office is a stable, fast internet connection. How do you do this on board, do you already use Starlink?
Mathias: No, because the mobile phone network here is better than at Alexanderplatz in Berlin. We work with a hotspot via mobile phone. We're chasing through gigabytes on prepaid tariffs and spending 200 euros a month. But these are our only running office costs! Apart from that, we might even have the most technological sailing boat of this size(laughs).
In what way?
Mathias: We have special lighting, cameras, mixing desks, microphones, screens, a green screen and cooling for the equipment. The salon table is a fully-fledged video studio!
Paulina: Mathias loves technology! A working laptop and perhaps a spare notebook are enough. But you definitely need good batteries on board so that you don't have to stress about whether you can charge the laptop or not. And, of course, the appropriate power supply with solar or wind.
Mathias:We are completely solar-powered. Our 900 watts in two large cells on the roof are completely sufficient, including for the fridge, freezer and water maker. We have eleven to twelve hours of sun a day here. The 800 ampere-hour lithium batteries are full around midday and stay that way until sunset.
Many people think that we spend the whole day sitting on the beach with a cocktail. That's definitely not the case!"
All in all, that sounds very good. Does anything ever go wrong?(Both laugh.)
Mathias: Oh yes! There's even a dent in the side wall because I hit it so hard with the spanner out of frustration. The highest highs are followed by the lowest lows. We've kept score: We put at least 2,600 hours into boat work. That's one and a half years of work, and that's without organisation, planning and logistics. This life can be mega frustrating. But we have a direct connection to our home and our office. And when everything works, a cold beer has never tasted so good! We don't have this intensity and this attitude to life anywhere else on land.
Paulina: I have often asked myself over the last four years: Where have I ended up here? But that's part of it. There was the Portugal moment, for example, when we were broke and we were told: Sell the ship! That was difficult.
Mathias: Even in the Kiel Canal, we had to top up the diesel tank to get rid of diesel pest. We almost rammed a grey whale in the Bay of Biscay. When the coronavirus hit, we were in quarantine for three quarters of a year and were then struck by lightning. In Panama, we were rammed head-on at five knots and experienced gunfights. In the Panama Canal, the engine finally died and we spent five months repairing it. Then we had a crack in the hull and had to get out of the water. In Nuku Hiva we were almost pushed onto land and only got out at the last moment. There are always situations where something happens. We were completely overwhelmed at first. But if you just do a little bit better every day than the day before, you can get anywhere. I think we are an example that anyone can do it.
What else have you learnt in your five years on board?
Paulina:If you want to do something like this: start early! If we had the choice again, we would start travelling at a younger age. Then we would have learnt everything much earlier.
Mathias: In the first year, you shouldn't focus on working a lot and earning money. Rather, you first have to arrive, get to know the boat and get to know each other as a couple on the water. We arrived in this life after a good two years. But we also travelled too fast in the first year. After six months, we were already in Colombia. In 2022, we sailed for just five weeks, which was the Pacific crossing. In 2023, we probably had a pure sailing time of four days. It's so beautiful here in French Polynesia - we basically don't want to leave.
Don't you want to complete the circumnavigation?
Paulina:That is of secondary importance. As things stand today, we can well imagine staying another year or two. Especially as we are expecting a baby here in Tahiti in January, which will mark the start of a new, special chapter.
Mathias: I think it would be nice to complete the circumnavigation. But what's more important is that the time remains intense. We are more deeply anchored in this life than ever before and are now reaping the rewards of the last few years. We must have learnt 18 trades so that we can now keep the ship running more easily. The question is no longer: "Can we do this?" but: "Do we want to?" Many of the worries that used to weigh so heavily on us now weigh far less. Everything takes place here on board: the ship has become our little universe. At the moment, we could go on like this forever.
About Paulina Lewandowski and Mathias Salomon:
