To Wanderer III, A Toast

To Wanderer
Story and photos
Over 60 years and 290,000 miles, this
classic wooden sloop has carried two
intrepid couples to Blue Water Medals
and countless landfalls, while inspiring
generations of cruisers.
Wanderer III runs before a
good, strong westerly gale
toward remote Tristan da
Cunha island in the South
Atlantic Ocean. Kicki Ericson
and
(opposite)
enjoy some rare brilliant
weather on Stewart Island,
off the southern tip of
New Zealand.
38 III, A Toast
The barometer is rising, the wind
has fallen to Force 7, the sea is still
rollicking rough, and the world out
there is so uninviting that one wants to
ignore it without being able to. My wife,
Kicki Ericson, and I are cocooned in
our sleeping bags like motionless mummies, wanting nothing more than just
to lie there and forget the world. There
is no room for joy in this place, not
with these gray tones, on the 15th day
of this winter passage in the Southern
Ocean from New Zealand to Chile.
Kicki offers me not one, but two of
the precious dried apricots from her
private stash of emergency rations.
“Never again,” she intones, and I agree.
“Not without a treat at the other end.”
I’m not sure that Puerto Montt is
composed of the stuff from which treats
are made. It rains like mad at this Chilean gateway to Patagonia. And, with us
still 4,400 miles away, it’ll be winter before we reach it. It’s now May, late fall in
the Southern Hemisphere, and the days
are short. Six days of storm-force winds
wear at the nerves. Where is the lightheartedness of life? This endless gray
gloom above our damp cavern encourages a return to the Stone Age, which in
these regions has always been the Water
Age. How much longer without relief?
Fortunately, on this passage, it’s all
39
Kicki takes in the welcome
warm temperatures and dry
conditions on approach to St.
Helena, in the South Atlantic
Ocean. Whitecaps, growlers,
and glaring sunshine
(opposite) make the
entrance to Drygalsky
Fjord, at South Georgia
Island, challenging.
“For us to live in such a small space would never be possible if it didn’t
move. And that’s what Wanderer III, our only home, does so fantastically.”
small stuff that breaks: The starboard
Sitka-spruce spinnaker pole cracked and
is provisionally repaired. The little open
chain tray on the foredeck was smashed
by a wave. The bulwark forward was
slightly stove in. Then the new mainsail
caught on the sharp edges of the radar
reflector, newly rigged in the shrouds,
and sustained three—fortunately mendable—tears. We replaced it temporarily
with the trysail, but when I pulled the
sail out of the forward hatch, a wave
sloshed into the forepeak.
Yes, Kicki is right when she says,
40 “Wanderer doesn’t want this anymore.
She deserves something nicer. Rest. Oh,
how about some sun from her youth?”
After all, Wanderer III is 60 years old,
just slightly older than me. It’s impossible, but I would’ve liked to be with her
back when she was young and boats
were the only links between islands. If
her iroko planks whispered a decipherable language, imagine the stories I’d
listen to daily.
She was already under way in an era
when Europe was still catching its breath
after World War II, England was still
clutching onto its empire, Sydney’s Opera House was unbuilt, and Mount Everest was still unconquered. In the early
1950s, there was as yet no mountain
biking in Nepal, no heli-skiing in New
Zealand, no hang gliding in the Andes,
and no kayaking around Cape Horn.
But seven-tenths of the planet was unspoiled ocean, a surface hardly explored
by yachts, which offered adventure. At
the time, few yachts had circumnavigated, and those that had often carried
singlehanders or teams of young men on
stormy, adrenaline-rich voyages.
Compared to such high-risk exploits,
the stories of Eric and Susan Hiscock—
who, on this very same Wanderer III,
became the first English couple to sail
around the world—sounded nearly tame
and dull. And exactly therein lay the Hiscocks’ appeal. Within the small international cruising circle, Eric Hiscock’s name
was already well known from his excellent, and today still valuable, sailing guide,
Cruising Under Sail, later dubbed “The
Yachtsman’s Bible.” With his 1956 book,
Around the World in Wanderer III, he added the dream. Together, they defined the
goal and the guide, offering the theoretical
basis for seaworthiness, seamanship, and
independence under sail.
The hair-raising aspects of open-ocean
cruising had been tamed. A circumnavigation, if well planned, became a
sequence of what Eric called “uneventful
passages.” Anyone could do it. Wanderer
III’s many uneventful passages inspired
thousands, including me.
To a certain extent, the entire rich
tapestry of modern cruising rests on the
2.56-meter width of the narrow canvas
deck above me. Peering out from under
the heavy duvet, I see a tightly organized improvisation: our cabin. It looks
totally different from its appearance in
Eric and Susan’s photographs taken on
their countless uneventful passages in
much warmer climes, 30 to 40 degrees
of latitude north of us. Up in the tropics,
Wanderer III’s original home cruising
ground, the Pacific is actually peaceful.
But for the duration of this passage, it’s as
if we’re camping. Extreme camping.
forays to the higher latitudes were then
brief. For the last 14 years, however, it’s
been the other way around: We’ve spent
very little time spent in the tropics, with
all the side effects such a territorial shift
brings with it.
The first optimizing measures for higher latitudes took place in the Falklands.
Our wood-burning stove—inactive since
New Zealand—found a new spot behind
the mast and has hindered our access to
the forepeak ever since. This necessitated
some rearranging, a new flue, and heatresistant copper plates. We found what
we needed at the local dump. Then the
heavy, 60-meter length of 10-millimeter
chain was procured, and we readied three
of our four anchors for immediate use.
Then we increased our supply of 20-mil-
The forepeak has been an unventilated
wet area for at least a week. The galley,
due to unavoidable comings and goings,
is also wet. A midship curtain endeavors
to keep the bunks dry. Piled between
these is the price we pay for a clear deck:
the anchors and lines, lashed securely
over the ballast. The boat ends are lightened, well, as much as is possible on a
9.3-meter ship that’s been our home for
30 years and carries everything we need
in life. For even these tough Southern
Ocean passages aren’t merely trips but
parts of our lives.
This total metamorphosis of our
accommodations, which optimizes
Wanderer III for rough seas, was never
necessary in the first years of our cruising. We predominantly sailed in warmer
waters. With a penchant for atolls, our
limeter shore lines to 500 meters, sewed
an egg-shaped spray hood, and looked
for stowage for our new Antarctic boots.
It left Kicki with the feeling that most of
our interior had been optimized away—a
feeling that’s never left her since.
On this optimized boat, we have an
optimistic barometer. Uncalibrated, it
consistently brightens our situation by no
less than 17 hectopascals above the actual
atmospheric pressure. Unintentionally it
probably raises morale by not plummeting to the true lows. Yet its tendencies are
accurate. As I knock it, it starts climbing.
The rising barometer was like a mental brightening of the horizon. Again
and again, low after low, on this 74-day
passage through the westerlies, we
would glean hope from the barometer.
Or despair, when battling the strangely
41
Lives Well Sailed, and Now, Well Honored
Shortly after meeting in the U.S. Virgin
Islands in 1989, when
and Kicki
Ericson first set sail together aboard Wanderer
III—the Laurent Giles-designed classic aboard
which legendary cruisers Eric and Susan
Hiscock twice circumnavigated
the globe—they had no
way of knowing precisely
what grand oceanic adventures awaited them.
The years roaming
about the Pacific, the
epic high-latitude
voyages, the 135,000
nautical miles in
a strong but simple
wooden boat the Hiscocks
launched in 1952: All that was
still before them.
As the years unfolded, the voyages they
undertook on the boat that was their only
home became not a string of separate trips, but
a seamless journey through a rich, shared life.
They didn’t do it for glory, and, heaven knows,
they didn’t do if for money, which has always
been in ridiculously short supply.
No, for Kicki and
, the currency they
trafficked in was far more valuable and was
embodied not in a portfolio but in a philosophic approach to their existence. Their basic,
elemental goal, on one hand, could not have
been more modest, and on the other, more ambitious. For they set sail to live unassumingly
and in harmony with the vast oceans, distant
islets, and raw landscapes while bearing witness to the glory and beauty of remote places
that so few are privileged to see.
For most of the last 24 years, they did so
very quietly, almost anonymously. Then, last
spring, they received not one but two of the
voyaging world’s most prestigious prizes: the
Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water Medal
and Great Britain’s Ocean Cruising Club’s
Award of Merit. Even more remarkably, it
was the second time Wanderer III had been
bestowed with the Blue Water award; the
Hiscocks received it in 1955.
“Normally a boat has just one story with one
person or couple, but Wanderer has managed
to carry two amazing sailing stories,” said
Thies. “The Hiscocks had their story, and now
we have ours.”
For
who was born and raised in
Germany, his Wanderer story began in 1982
42 when he purchased the boat in Kiel while
serving his boat-building apprenticeship. He
didn’t have the full asking price of $25,000 but
bartered the difference with home repairs and
ship’s models.
He met Kicki, a native Swede who’d recently
earned a degree in architecture, through a
mutual friend in the Caribbean, where she was
working in historic preservation. Unlike Thies,
who’d sailed there aboard Wanderer III, she
wasn’t a sailor. “I didn’t know people lived on
boats or that this lifestyle existed,” she said. “But
once I did, I thought it was fabulous. You’re
mobile, you’re out in nature, everything you
have is with you. It was perfect.”
After a trial cruise to Venezuela, they set
forth into the Pacific, and for the next six years
explored its most isolated corners and atolls.
“We immersed ourselves in island culture,”
said
In 1996, they crossed the Indian
Ocean to South Africa, arriving with $200 to
their names. From Cape Town they sailed 54
straight days to Uruguay, and in early 1997,
spent several months “training” in the windswept Falkland Islands for the next chapter
of their voyaging lives, three months in the
otherworldly island of South Georgia. “It was
fantastic,” said
“It left an imprint on us.”
The voyaging never stopped: Cape Horn.
The Chilean channels. Antarctica. The Pacific.
Wanderer III was dashed on a reef in New
Caledonia; they fixed her good as new. The
accompanying story tells the tale of another
Southern Ocean passage, from New Zealand to
South America. “That’s when we really started
our winter stuff,” said
Most recently, that
led to a two-year expedition to South Georgia
and a return trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina,
where Wanderer III currently lies.
In accepting the Blue Water Medal last
March,
aid, “What our many miles
essentially boil down to is the wisdom of the
Arthur Ransome saying engraved in Wanderer
III’s companionway. It was chosen by Eric and
Susan 60 years ago. It says ‘Grab a chance and
you won’t be sorry for a might have been.’
“To follow it in a simple way is the spirit,
which has led Kicki and me to arrive at this
point. So, above all—to me—this evening is
also a celebration of simplicity and of quite old
values: Small is beautiful, take time, reduce, go
humbly, and not too fast.”
Amen,
and Kicki. Godspeed, Wanderer III.
Herb McCormick
predominant headwinds from the east,
which shouldn’t have been there. Without any weather forecasts, we interpreted
our situation as an uncommon distribution of highs and lows. We were totally
alone: Nobody knew where we were,
and we couldn’t inform anyone. We were
“solo” on an optimized, optimistic boat,
which, in these high latitudes, was still
far from being optimal.
Wooden and small, Wanderer III, despite her many good traits, can never be
ideal. With a 26-foot waterline and 10ton displacement, she’s no racehorse. On
most passages, she takes twice as long as
larger, modern hulls. This translates into
more sea time and seabird sightings, but
also twice as much Southern Ocean exposure, with its associated likelihood of
being hit by bad weather. In any windy
situation, the 16-horsepower engine is
insufficient, and at sea, our limited diesel
capacity of 20 liters overrules progress
in calms. On long ocean crossings, like
this one from New Zealand to Chile, we
don’t carry additional jerricans of fuel,
filling up instead with extra water. Once
under way, it’s cold on board. Wanderer
III is too small to carry fuel for warmth.
Instead, we have to collect wood, peat, or
coal at our destination for the stove. The
only place we couldn’t rely on finding
fuel was Antarctica, so we carried Argentine quebracho wood and charcoal
in the forepeak. It was just a two-month
trip, and being cold was an acceptable
price to pay for the visual wonders of
the white continent. Provisioning for
longer trips to uninhabited regions
requires logistical finesse. In the end, it’s
Wanderer III’s size that turns such visits
into extreme logistical exercises.
With the exception of perhaps the
North Atlantic, a wooden yacht on
the trade-wind route can feel quite
lonely nowadays. In the high latitudes,
especially in the Southern Hemisphere,
she’s definitely no longer among her
kind. Metal clearly reigns here. Nearly
all the yachts in these latitudes are solid,
heavily motorized aluminum or steel
constructions and suited to the rough
weather and tough conditions.
I’ll never forget the last evening of our
first visit to South Georgia 13 years ago.
For our final days of preparing Wanderer
III for our voyage to South Africa, we’d
tied up next to explorer Amyr Klink’s
Paratii, with its AeroRig. In his native
Brazil, Amyr enjoys the fame of a football
star. He’d just completed a singlehanded
Kicki has the helm during
a short midwinter outing
on South Georgia’s Cumberland East Bay, with
Nordenskjöld Glacier in
the background.
C ru i s i n g Wo r l d
J u ly 2 0 1 2 43
circumnavigation of Antarctica within
the Antarctic Convergence. His Paratii
was a 50-foot aluminum giant. Wanderer
III at her side looked like a dwarf.
Our German friends Harald and Hedel Voss were then also at the ex-whaling
station’s dilapidated wharf in Grytviken,
the main settlement on South Georgia.
Their Moritz D is also an aluminum
yacht; they’ve done extraordinary voyages on her that have never reached the
public’s ear. We were all gathered on
Paratii. I don’t know what Amyr might
have mixed into our Brazilian coffees,
but soon Wanderer III, Kicki, and I were
bowled over by a lively discussion. It
dealt with existential questions, not of
life and death but of present and future:
Wanderer III vs. something better suited,
something metal, something practical.
Amyr led the way:
“Now listen,
You like these icy
regions, the cold, and the wildlife here.
You’ll be sailing here for many years to
come. I can hear that. Why not do it on
a boat more suited to the climate? Just
look at Wanderer, how loaded she is
with all the gear. Build something new.
We’ve all done it.”
We talked till late into the night, our
last on that marvelous island. Early the
next morning, I pulled 35 meters of
heavy chain from under the floorboards
and dragged it into the abandoned
whaling station, where it lay for years
with our name on it. This lightened my
conscience more than it did Wanderer
III. Then we cast off into light winds,
which soon turned stormy. Thirty-five
days later, we reached Cape Town after
yet another—to use Eric’s words—
“uneventful passage” right through an
area of ocean that during the Hiscocks’
time had been mentally incomprehensible for those sailing small boats. It was
a trip that confirmed rather than shook
my confidence in Wanderer III.
Obviously, she’s small and limiting.
She limits us spatially, aesthetically,
and historically. We have to respect her
historic context. There will never be a
sheltering wheelhouse from which to
watch the wildlife nor, simpler yet, a
proper double bed. And no bowsprit for
increased sail area to allow her to move
more easily in choppy seas and light
air. Considering her size, however, she
has an extraordinary ability to master
storms under sail and to tack from a lee
44 Although ice covers the
bay of Grytviken, at South
Georgia, for weeks at a
time, eventually a swell
breaks it up, the wind
carries it to sea, and
Wanderer III is set free
again. Kicki (below, left)
takes notes in Wanderer
III’s simple, cozy cabin.
Wanderer III undergoes
preparation (right) in
Dunedin, New Zealand,
for the winter passage to
Puerto Montt, Chile.
shore. Or in similar conditions, on the
open ocean, to heave to well without
losing ground, which is essential for an
underpowered ship.
The reasons why I don’t make the
quantum leap and switch to a metal boat
run deep. Thirty years of togetherness
in harmonic symbiosis is one of them. A
matching mentality of boat and owner is
another. Since early in my life, I wished
to spend as much time as possible at
or on the sea, living quietly, independently, and according to a value system
in which not economics but simplicity,
openness, curiosity, and time are important. Wanderer III supports us in this
as hardly another boat could. Silently,
unobtrusively, she brings our lives into
accord with values for which she herself
is a role model.
Plus I know her inside and out. I know
wood. All the voyages that inspired me
happened on wooden boats. Wooden
boats are attractive in every phase of
their lives. Where they’re built becomes
a favored gathering spot. In their active
lives, they often catch the eye. Even as
wrecks they remain aesthetical, as if they
belonged in our lives at every stage—
more than boats of any other material.
Of course, she had to be well built,
and she is. Wanderer III is traditionally
planked and caulked and is well kept.
There’s no strengthening with either
diagonal cold molding or fiberglass
mats; instead, she’s sheathed in copper.
That’s her. Yet no matter how well she
may be built, in the Southern Ocean she
remains a somewhat fragile composition of a thousand parts. Nothing wrong
with that: Being fragile and vulnerable
helps one to move through the world
with respect.
As a traditional builder of wooden
boats, I like to show that such craft aren’t
just pretty to look at. They’re made to
sail, too. They’re not just romantic but
also astonishingly functional. Something
as basic as Wanderer III, after 60 years
and 290,000 miles under sail, is still up
for anything. And imagine how her tiny
cabin, which at times we so radically
transform, has been continuously lived
in, on the oceans, since 1952.
For us to live in such a small space
would never be possible if it didn’t
move. And that’s what Wanderer III, our
only home, does so fantastically. To the
wildlife that so inspires Kicki. Over the
oceans that I so love. And every once in
a while, she pulls us back to the nowaltered places of her youth.
and his wife, Kicki Ericson, are
currently aboard Wanderer III in Argentina, where
they’re planning their next adventure.
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