... I got an email. From a young Australian named Nick Jaffe.
I was just doing it, my first “Maverick” for sale on Ebay in the US. He told me, that he came to Germany in the footsteps of his deceased father, to figure out, what kind of person his father was. Unfortunately, he never really got to know him, because he died too soon.
After a year in Germany, he began to worry. Here he already had one “Home”, this is where its roots lay. He grew up in the other home, Australia. “There is such a long stretch in between ... I would like to know, what's on the way home.” He had just read Tanja Aebi's book, who had sailed around the world in an 8-meter boat, as the youngest woman. This trip fascinated him. So he fitted the plan, to sail home. But he still had to learn to sail.
For the trip he wanted my first “Maverick” to buy. But I advised against it. “The boat is past its prime.”
Two months later we met for coffee in Berlin. He had read many books and magazines on sailing, had the impression, one must 20.000 Invest in equipment alone. “What do I really need?? So ... if I take it minimalistically?” – “All you really need is a stable boat, a paper map and a handheld GPS”, was my answer.
A few months later I got an email from England. “I have an old Contessa 26 bought”, sagte er, “Tanja Aebi had one of those too. But there is still a lot to be done.” I advised him, to bring the boat to Hamburg, to overtake it there. I could be of great help there. I also offered to help with the transfer, teach him to sail along the way. A few days later I was already on the bus to London.
Two exciting and turbulent weeks later, I disembarked in Holland, because I had to go back to Germany, my vacation was over. In Emden, at the end of the stand mast route, I wanted to come back on board, for the sea passage to Cuxhaven. But a week later I got an email. He had turned around on the IJsselmeer. “I kind of realized: Australia is in the opposite direction” he wrote with a smiley face behind it. On my objection, that the boat really still needs a lot of work, to be prepared for the Atlantic, he answered “I do that on the go.”
It was late in the season. But everything worked. After all, he put a lot of work into the ship in the Canary Islands, sailed across the Atlantic to Antigua in April, had to flee there again before the hurricane season and sailed up to New York, where he was related and found work for a while. Because the Panama Canal costs a lot of money, Nick eventually took an unconventional route, to get to the Pacific: He had the boat brought across the USA to California in a trailer and followed in a rental car.
Ten years ago I wrote a large portrait of Nick for the YACHT. Der Titel “With six raisins to Australia”.
Before he left, Nick met the Australian film producer Jack in Berlin, who visited Nick again and again on the go. A fantastic documentary emerged from the trip: “Between home”. Or in German (Subtitles possible): “Two mat”. A man traveling between his two homes.
I keep appearing in it. Funny anecdote by the way: In a village in Virginia / USA we were invited to a barbecue on another boat. Suddenly one of the other guests asked me “say, aren't you the type from ‘Between Home’?”
Nick's and my adventure together “Constellation” is 13 Years back. But I have just been able to relive these exciting weeks, because Nick has recently been (long-awaited from me) Book brought out. There you can read the whole story. His views are also exciting, how he perceived my reactions and behavior. VERY worth reading! 🙂
Here are my blog entries from back then:
Dover - departure port to Holland
You can watch the film here:
And here is the book:
